


I 




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J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.} 

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i UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, i 



SERMONS ON THE SEASONS 





a^z//z 



wu_ 



'Sees meg. Chrisms 



DESCRIPTIVE AND DIDACTIC 



SERMONS ON THE SEASONS; 



A SERMON 



ON 



THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST. 

BY THE 

Rev. FRANKLIN MOORE, A. M. 



" While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and 
summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."— Gen. viii. 22. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PEEKINPINE & HIGGINS, 

No. 56 NORTH FOURTH STREET. 
- 1860. 
NEW YORK : 
SHELDON & CO. 



JSXg333 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S60, by 

PERKINPINE & HIGGINS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY WILLIAM W. HARDING, PHILADELPHIA. 



TO THE 

HON. DANIEL AGXEW, 

PRESIDING JUDGE 
ra 

THE SEVENTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT 

(Comprising the counties of Butler, Lawrence, and Beaver.) 
OF 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ; 
®J)t* V o I u m i 

IS 

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE. 



It lias pleased God to impart to the author of this 
volume a passionate sympathy rath the sights, sounds, 
and developments of the outer, material world. It has 
pleased God, also, in the riches of his grace, to call the 
author, under a solemn sense of duty to his fellow men 
and to his Creator, to the office of the Christian ministry. 
The result of these facts — is the volume now sent forth 
with the prayer and sweet hope that, here and there, in 
the great world of modern readers, the author will find a 
congenial spirit who will receive his labors kindly, and 
read these pages with profit and pleasure. This work is 
an outgrowth of a fondness for natural scenery cherished 
and developed in the author's boyhood, by the gray and 
rocky, wood-mantled, rain-furrowed cliffs; and by the 
brattling waters, sloping hills, and winding, lonely ra- 
vines, which are around the site of old Fort Mcintosh 
on the extreme northern bank of that most beautiful of 
all beautiful rivers — the Ohio. The nature of the theme 
— The Seasons — is such as demands a departure from the 
ordinary style of pulpit teaching ; requires more than a 
usual amount of the descriptive, pictorial element. An 

7 



8 PREFACE. 

abnormal theme demands an unusual style of sermoniz- 
ing. The spirit of a season will be more vividly received 
from its scenes than from abstract statements. 

As to the propriety of these Sermons for occasional 
pulpit instruction, no one can doubt, who has been tho- 
roughly imbued with the spirit of the Book of Psalms — 
a book which God designed to be a manual of devotion 
for all lands and for all ages. It is hoped, therefore, that 
this little work will occupy a useful place in, compara- 
tively, an untrodden field of Theological Literature. 

There is an important, practical use % in such sermons as 
compose this volume. Their tendency is — to interweave 
piety with all life, to lead men into a realization of the 
beautiful lines of Thomson : 

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of thee. 

As to the style of the work, the author would say — it is 
natural to himself, is such as he must use on such a 
theme, if he express, at all, the workings of his soul in 
writing. He now commits the volume to its destiny, 
fully willing to permit its fate to be decided by the rule 
indicated in his sermon on Winter, under the section, 
Winter types the indestructibility of Truth. If this little 
book have merit in it, its thoughts and scenes will live in 
some souls ; if it have not merit, it ought to die. 

Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



POETIC HOMILY— HORACE 11 

SPRING AND ITS LESSONS 15 

SUMMER AND ITS LESSONS 51 

AUTUMN AND ITS LESSONS 81 

WINTER AND ITS LESSONS Ill 

CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST 141 

NOTES 177 



OD. VII. AD TORQUATUM, 

Q. HOE. FLAC. CAR. LIB. QXJABTUS. 



" 1mmortalia he spep.es. monet annus et almum 
Quae rapit hora diem. 

FRIGORA MITESCUNT ZePHYRIS : TER PROTERIT AESTAS, 

interitura, simul 
pomifer autumnus fruges effudeeit j et mox 

Bruma recurrit iners. 
damna tamen celere5 reparant coelestia l.unae : 

xos tbi decidimus 
Quo pater Aeneas, quo Tulles dives, et Ancus 

PULYIS ET UMBRA SUMUS. 
QUIS SCIT AN ADJTCIANT H0D1ERNAE CRAST1NA SUMMAE 
TEMPORA Dl SUPERI? 1 " 



11 



SERMON ON SPRING. 



SPRING. 



Song of Solomon. II. 11, 12, 13. 

For, lo y , the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; The flowers 
appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and 
the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth 
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good 
smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. 

Looking over the Universe of matter and mind, 
a thoughtful person will notice one grand law hold- 
ing an imperial sway — the law of change. This 
law seems to root and ground itself in the nature 
of God. While he is immutable as to the fact of 
his existence and the powers and moral attributes 
of his nature, proclaiming to the Universe ever- 
more, — "I change not," — yet, his goodness makes 
him an almighty and restless impulse towards the 
unfolding of himself in manifold blessings. Though 
no obligation rests with God so far as justice is 

(15) 



16 SPEING. 

concerned, to create either men or angels ; and he 
might, without the infraction of right, have re- 
mained in the solemn silence of his infinity and 
eternity, still, there does appear to be a kind of ne- 
cessity of Love imposed upon him, inducing him to 
create something dependent on his bounty, some- 
thing to rejoice in his smile. God is Love, possibly, 
not only in such a sense that he actually did create, 
but the subject of such an irrepressible Love, that 
he could not else than create, something without 
himself. The Seasons of our earth are regulated 
in harmony with this principle of Love which mani- 
fests itself in unceasing change — ever gushing, ever 
new displays of its richness. Their variety grati- 
fies that relish for the New which is so powerful a 
principle and passion in human nature; and thus 
proves their adaptation to promote human happi- 
ness, and, also, the loving kindness of God to man. 
Spring has been, in every age of the world, the 
most admired of all the Seasons ; has been regarded 
as the " pearl and crown" of the year. It has 
ever been greeted with buoyant, jubilant hearts — 
hearts m sympathy with its own leaping, laughing 
waters. Mark the gladsome utterances of the text : 



SPRING. 17 

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and 
gone ; The flowers appear on the earth ; the time 
of the singing of birds is conie, and the voice of 
the turtle is heard in our land ; The fig tree putteth 
forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender 
grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair 
one, and come away. 

Here is the verdict of that volume which, while 
it is, in high and impressive senses, the Book of 
God, yet. in lively expression of virtuous, noble hu- 
man sympathies, is the Book of humanity — its 
spirit and aim being to link God and man sweetly 
together — to promote the raptured and reverent fel- 
lowship of the creature with the Creator. Listen, 
again, to the blithe exclamation of the bard of 
Mantua, 

Et nunc ornnis ager, nunc oninis parturic arbos, 
Xunc frondent sylva?, nunc forniosissimus annus. 

And now every field, now every tree brings forth, 
Xow the woods are green, now is the most beautiful time of all the 
vear. 



His twin spirit.Horace, with lyrical inspiration .sings, 
■2 



18 SPRING. 

Diffugere nives; redeunt jam gramma campis, 

Arboribusque comae : 
Mutat terra vices ; et descrescentia ripas 

Flumina praetereunt. 

" The snow dissolves, the field its verdure spreads, 
The trees high wave in air their leafy heads, 
Earth feels the change, the rivers calm subside, 
And smooth along their banks decreasing glide." 

While lie who has associated our language with 
the fragrance, and beauty, and majesty of the roll- 
ing Seasons, and has,, thus, made the English lan- 
guage an inheritance for the earth, which those sea- 
sons adorn — Thomson, who communed with woods 
and winds, flowers and forests, as though they were 
living things, instinct with intelligent consciousness, 
hails the Spring-time thus : 

" Come, gentle Spring, etherial mildness come, 
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, 
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower 
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend." 

Doubtless, one reason w^hy Spring is so much ad- 
mired, is the strong contrast which its luxuriant 
freshness presents to the bleak, desolate aspect of 
Winter. The tendency of strong contrast is to 



SPRING. 19 

heighten the impressions of the mind, to create an 
exaggerated view of things* The action of the mind 
under this influence of contrast, is like the rebound 
of coiled steel. 

The more compactly the polished spring is rolled 
together, the more impetuous will be its rush to re- 
pose, when the compression is withdrawn. So, oft- 
times, the more intensely a feeling possesses the soul, 
that intensity is but the measure of power with 
which the mind will vault to the realization of a 
feeling which is the very opposite of the one that 
previously held sway. The gloom and desolation of 
winter, under this law of mental action, fling 
beauty and glory upon the landscapes of Spring. 
Like as heavy shading, in magnificent works of the 
artist, gives finer relief to the lighter touches of his 
brush, so the storms and murky mists of Winter, to 
our minds, invest the Spring-time with redoubled 
charms. This season of the year, however, it must 
be admitted, has, as the pulsing hearts of the living 
and the dead attest, its intrinsic loveliness and bril- 
liancy. Were there no contrast like that of Win- 
ter, constituted as we are, our hearts would love the 
Spring-time, still. 



20 SPRING. 

How sweet the season in itself and in its associa- 
tions ! The Winter's cold is gone ; the atmosphere is 
not so chill as to drive the startled blood hack to 
the heart ; nor are we crushed and prostrate under 
the scorching heat of the sun. The blood thrills 
merrily through its delicate channels, and the frame 
rejoices in untrammeled strength. The wind w T hich 
has rioted wildly on the wintry sea, rushed over its 
banked and foaming breast, howling and whistling 
frantically through the masts and rigging of strug- 
gling ships — which has traveled abroad with a re- 
sistless rush that symbolizes Omnipotence itself, — 
now loses its fury, and, floating, full of life, from the 
bright and far spreading fields of the Ocean, moves 
over the land with an inspiring gentleness ; toying 
and whispering softly among the green and tressy 
forest branches ; and murmuring low, sweet music, in 
the flushed cells of the flowers. The skies which 
have been shadowy for months, sometimes mantled 
with the blackness and frenzy of the tempest which 
weaves its mists into the sullen winding sheet of the 
dead year — the skies are now bright. The gloom 
swept away, there is revealed a vast vault of illumi 
nated blue, purified by the passing breeze. At mid- 



SPEIXG. 21 

day it is hung, here and there, with piled clouds, 
heaving their billowy heights aloft like mountains 
of pearl. At eventide the huge clouds assume irre- 
gular shapes, which, burnished with sun rays, seem 
like crags of crimson and gold, which overhang and 
environ silent and shadowy chasms, and lonely, va- 
pory chambers, " of which darkness seems to have 
taken possession as a nest for its everlasting repose." 
The lighter, thinner vapors, the meanwhile, are rolled 
out before the eye as a glowing sea, whose breast 
of bronze stretches afar off and out into the depths 
of infinity. The streams, free from their icy chains, 
leap boldly from the mountain crags and glens ; and 
purl and gurgle down the valleys and across the 
plains, while all their windings flash with unwonted 
brightness. 

Vegetation is now rapid, and fresh and glancing 
green, as if making amends for the long suppression 
of Winter. The meadows and hill-sides are robed 
in luxuriant grass. The newly leaved forests cease 
to growl, as swept by the night blast: cast deep 
shades from their intertwining branches ; and wave 
and bend their green and gleaming summits, glee- 
fully, in the light wind. Right glorious, now, is the 



22 SPRING. 

sight of some winding river, sweeping along its am- 
ple channel with a song of joy ; its pebbly shores 
fringed with stately trees which, revealing its course 
in the distance, seem to girdle the land with a band 
of emerald. Sweet, too, are the reciprocal relations 
between the living stream and its overhanging trees 
—a lovely illustration of the law of love. 

They, following all its sweeping curves, and ad- 
ding beauty to lines of beauty, and drawing life 
from its life, seem to lift up their leaf-matted branch- 
es above it — in thanks and blessing. In gratitude 
they cast their cool shadows on its crystal breast, 
while the stream, in return for the shadow which 
will soon prove a screen from the hot glance of Sum- 
mer, nestles the images of the trees, down, deep in 
its tranquil and silent heart. 

There are two elements of Spring, alluded to in 
the text, which invest it, to all minds, with rich in- 
terest. "The flowers appear on the earth." What 
an utterance of overflowing fullness of beauty and 
goodness ! What a message of joy to hosts of hu- 
man hearts! Who is there, apart from the action 
of peculiar physical or mental disease, that loathes, 
and loves not the breath, — that thrills not at the 



SPRING. 26 

pure flush of the rose? Who is there, that, as he 
threads garden walks, and roams the hills, and 
winds along the valleys, breathes not thanks to God 
for the ministry of flowers ? Yes, thanks and praise 
be ascribed to our God for such eloquent teachers 
of the pure and beautiful ! Who can tell, since 
Adam and Eve first glowed at the bloom of Eden, 
and saw, in the radiant eyes of the flowers, but the 
reflection of the smile of God, how many human 
spirits, in the roll of ages, have been silently drawn 
to thoughts of God, of holiness and heaven, through 
the agency of — waving flowers ! So far as their in- 
fluence holds, its tendency is to soften the rude, to 
refine and ennoble the harsh and evil. They have 
been beautifully styled "the alphabet of the angels/' 
traced over the hills and valleys. Are they not, 
rather, the alphabet of God himself, from which, in 
rich combinations, the men of all lands may read 
the law of kindness ? And if they be sources of 
refinement and tenderness to the robust and healthy, 
they are as angels of mercy to the pale-browed child 
of disease. Who can think, right earnestly, of the 
sweet ministry of flowers in the sick room, without 
a tear bursting to his eye ? Ah, yes, warm hearts, 



24 SPRING. 

that are pulseless now, have throbbed strongly for 
the moment in defiance of disease, as, under the 
sad consciousness of the light of earth going out in 
the gloom of the grave, flowers, like sweet and si- 
lent comforters, have smiled on them in their sor- 
row. 2 Aye, and it may be that many a wasted and 
w T earied invalid, as he inhaled' the invigorating per- 
fume, and gazed at the living bloom of his vase of 
flowers — has read precious prophecies of rest and 
rapture — of an inheritance where miasms and pest- 
ilence breathe and blight not, but the hopes and hap- 
piness of the heart are in eternal bloom. How 
sweet, also, to the soul, are flowers, when, blended 
with green and fragrant geranium leaves, they adorn 
the coffined forms of our sainted dead, who sleep in 
such a deep repose ; mantled with such unearthly 
sweetness ; instinct with such statuesque beauty, that 
it seems, even now, as if the radiance of immortality 
were breaking forth from the shadowy bands of death ! 
What are roses and hyacinths and lilies, at such a 
time, but signal lights which are destined to glow 
brightly, to the eye of faith, even in the midnight 
of the grave, and shed abroad — through all the black 



SPRING. 2d 

and lonely corridors of the dominions of death — 
the light of a coming and endless triumph ! Crown- 
ing glory of the Spring-time are flowers ! Let its 
then, be thankful that we have been spared to wit- 
ness another time of their springing. And now, as 
all over our land thronging myriads of garden and 
wild flowers are bursting from their green cups, and 
unrolling their leaves to the sunlight and breeze, the 
dew and the shower ; as the breeze of garden and 
forest, of hill-side and valley, comes to us freighted 
with the honeyed fragrance of anemones, of violets 
and roses — let us take up the strain of ancient Israel, 
" give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for 
his mercy endureth forever." 

But the flowers are not alone. "The time of the 
singing of birds is come; and the voice of the tur- 
tle is heard in our land." Birds seem, by quick 
association of thought, to be linked with flowers. 
The one are exuberant life in color, the other gush- 
ing life in sound — in rambling song; and thus God 
makes the Spring-time to be — "beauty to the eye, 
and music to the ear." Have we ever, even yet, 
after ages of human history and experience, suffi- 
ciently appreciated the value of wild birds? Many 



26 SPRING. 

have, and many have not. Think what a change on 
earth, — if the seasons came and departed — if trees 
and flowers sprang and flourished, withered and 
died, and, all the while, there was silence of bird 
song! What a diminution of enjoyment in things 
without and around us — if there were no morning 
chorists warbling in the wood, and filling all the air 
with voices of gladness ! How changed the world 
would be, to the refined ear, if there were no lus- 
cious swell of thrush notes on the hill-side ; no mirth 
provoking medley of the mocking bird ; no cooing 
of the turtle, breathing out, from her loving heart, 
gentle joy that Spring had come again : and if, in 
deep and cool forest depths, amidst the shadowy 
aisles of those green temples which God himself has 
reared, there were no choristers save — lonely winds, 
and crashing, rattling, branches ! And, surely, the 
eventide of Spring were not itself, if, perched high 
on the swaying branch of some luxuriantly leaved 
tree, the loud, clear-throated robin, as if almost in 
agony, through very fullness of ecstasy,— if he rolled 
not forth his inspiring strains — to float out and away 
among the blossoms ! Let us not, then, forget to 
thank God for birds, as well as flowers, and now to 



SPRING. 27 

rejoice, that the "time of the singing of birds is 
come." We have, withal, at this season of the year, 
an illustration of the manner in which God links 
the beautiful with the useful. At the same time the 
birds are singing and the flowers flinging their 
fragrance on the air, "the fig tree putteth forth her 
green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give 
a good smell." There is much around us, now, to 
charm the eye and ear ; but there is much, also, in 
the process of nature moving steadily onward to 
fruition, to excite the heart ; inspire the soul with 
gratitude to Him of whom it is said, " The eyes of 
all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat 
in due season. Thou openest thine hand, andsatis- 
fiest the desire of every living thing." Let us not 
fail to hope and be thankful, as, in the tender grape 
clusters which throng the windings of the vine ; and 
in the green stalks of the grain field which bend in 
the breeze and sparkle in the sunlight, we realize 
the noble truth, that *" while we labor and while 
we rest, while we wake and while we sleep, God's 
chemistry, which we cannot see, goes on beneath 
the clods ; myriads and myriads of vital cells fer- 

* Everett. 



28 SPRING. 

ment with elemental life ; germ and stalk, and leaf 
and flower, and silk and tassel, and grain and fruit, 
grow up from the common earth," to nurture and 
bless man. Let us in the gushing promise of ten- 
der buds and opening blossoms ; of glancing grain 
fields, springing vines, and the shooting forth of the 
fig tree, with grateful faith rejoice that, after a lit- 
tle while, " the bow of promise fulfilled, will span 
the foreground" of the rural picture of the year; 
"and the gracious covenant will be redeemed, that 
while the earth remaineth, summer and winter, heat 
and cold, and day and night, and seedtime and har- 
vest shall not fail." Before we cease to notice the 
elegancies of Spring, let us roam abroad and feast a 
little while on some of her delicious landscapes. Are 
we now in the midst of a region where the skillful 
hand of man has been applied, and pleasant things 
rise at his command ? Standing on some swelling knoll, 
look abroad and rejoice in the clustering splendors. 
The evening sun floods fields and forests with seas 
of luscious light. The fresh grain stalks, flashing 
under his rays, reveal the fields aglow, as if the 
earth were radiant with showers of freshly fallen 
and glancing gems. The farm homes, dear by a my- 



SPRING. 29 

riad heart memories, lift up their arched roofs 
among the tressy summits of the trees, while the 
clambering vine flings down its quickening fragrance 
around the door-way — thus yielding a sweet wel- 
come to all who cross that threshold of the heart's 
castle. And, then, with frequent clumps of fruit 
trees hastening to maturity, 

" See the country, far diffused around, 
One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower 
Of mingled blossoms.'* 

Linger we, now, in the grassy valley of some gently 
flowing river. Its far sweeping curves are fringed 
with jutting trees, which bathe their branches in its 
rippling waters. The bold bluff towers proudly above 
its glassy breast, frowning on us, here, with a front 
of gray and mossy rock, while, yonder, it is thick- 
ly matted with trees interspersed with bloom. 
Grandly does it lift itself from the waters, its mass 
of foliage unfolding it as a mighty ridge of emerald, 
with the Red-bud blushing at its base, and the Dog- 
wood flaunting its white cups along its sides and on 
its breezy brow. With such a scene before us, we 
know how sweet that heaven will be which is pic- 



30 SPRING. 

tured to the heart, as coursed with a river whose wa- 
ters fail not, and whose overhanging trees are green 
forever. Do we, again, after a toilsome struggle, plant 
us high on some mountain crest ? As the eye ranges 
over the mighty breast of the valley beneath, ar- 
rayed in the gay attire of Spring, instinctively, the 
mind will revert to that man with whom God talked 
face to face, as a man talketh with his friend ; will 
revert to him as, on the height of Pisgah, with God 
for his comforter, he saw the goodly land which Is- 
rael would soon inherit, and read, in its richness, 
prophecies of the better Canaan upon which his 
soul was just entering. The bracing air cools the 
hot brow, and thrills the languid breast. The fir- 
mament swells out with unexampled fullness and 
greatness, as if mirroring infinity. The valley, with 
its meadows and ridges grassy and bright, inter- 
spersed with springing orchards — rolls away before 
the eye like a sapphirine sea — decked with islets all 
abloom. The forest careers around, grim and scowl- 
ing; adorned, and varied, in spaces, with high, spiry 
pines, which are green and sweet all the year. 
Crowning all the scene of unutterable pomp and mys- 
terious majesty, the billowy sea of life, far below, 



I ING. ol 

rolls out at last against a soast :: darkness which 

is. yet. no: lisnaah '/:,: so::, like the "Steel blue*' 
bank wki:k forever rims :he expanses :f the ocean, 
How suggestive! Thus it ever is with the soul: 
shadows settle lown, at last, mits grandest sweeps 
of truth. In heaven itself, the sweet haze of the 
still tore will hein in the prospects :f there- 

ring &nd triumphant spirit. Blessed is the know- 
led.; that t :; :o 1 — ' r fon '. — where the mists gath- 
er, rkens. — even there, all is instinct 
the goodnes- ::' a fat-hei — jven there, his hand 
shall lead, and his right hand shall hold and bless 
the soul which is redeemed and renovated by the 
blood of Jesus! : may . i. before leaving this 
portion of our theme, having previously alluded to 
the skies :f Spring, that in our land, this, and, in- 
deed, all the >ther seasons :f :ke year, are clothed 
with one form of beauty which is not witnessed in 
some lands—a be a a ty which arises from skies adorned 
:h eloni scenery. Observe the testimony of 
:ne wk: kas traveled in the ea^:, ' •• Here, there 
is nc shifting of the scenes of natural beauty, no 
tvcr-varying alory upon glory; no variei devel:T> 



32 SPRING. 

ment of the laws of harmony and truth, which char- 
acterizes her workings elsewhere ; no morning film 
of mist, or low, hanging cloud of unshed dew ; no 
clouds of feathery cirrus, or white and wool-like 
pinnacles of cumuli, or light or gorgeous tints, daz- 
zling the eye with their splendors ; no arrowy shafts 
of sunlight streaming through the rifts of drifting 
clouds ; no silvery spikes of morning shooting up in 
the east, or soft suffusion of evening in the west; 
but from the gleam of dawn, that deepens at once 
into the intensity of noon, one withering glare 
scorches the eye, from which blood-shot and with 
contracted pupil, it gladly turns away." With joy 
for the return of Spring, let us also thank God that 
the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, that 
he has given us a goodly heritage. 

As we now proceed to trace the lessons which 
may be drawn from Spring, let us notice again, the 
spirit and language of the text : For lo, the 
winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers 
appear on the earth ; the time of the singing of 
birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard 
in our land ; the fig tree putteth forth her green 



SPRING. 33 

figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good 
smell. 

What breaks out buoyantly from its utterances 
but this, Spring is the type of joy after sorrow! 

Giving this truth a religious direction, we may 
observe that the text is but part of a beautiful com- 
position, commencing at the eighth verse, and run- 
ning to the close of the second chapter. * An east- 
ern bride is sitting in her garden bower. Around 
her are all the charms of nature. But they cheer not ; 
her soul is sad, for the spouse of her heart is absent. 
The mountains of Bether, or Division, rise between 
her and him whom her soul loveth. While thus sad 
and lonely, she listens, she hears, she cries, "The 
voice of my beloved !" Soon, springing like a roe 
or a young hart, he is at the lattice ; he gives the in- 
vitation to " come away," to go forth and rejoice in 
the lovely scenes around her. It is but the call of 
Christ to his church, of the Saviour to the believing 
soul. Spring, then, becomes the symbol of God's 
visits to the church in trial ; to the believing soul in 
sorrow, and bewailing the absence of the Holy Spir- 
it — the Comforter. We have thus opened up be- 

* McCheyne's Works. 



34 SPRING. 

fore us a wide range of thought, which it is not re- 
quisite for us to trace out minutely. How true it 
is, however, that, to the heart which has glowed with 
the smile of Gocl, although all earth may conspire 
to cheer,— the soul is sad, if the Saviour be absent ! 
This attitude of soul is well expressed in the lines 
so often sung by the churches ; lines which are dear 
to many, by memories of scenes of solemn worship 
in the far past, and w T hich sweetly thrill the heart, 
as ointment poured forth thrills the sense : 

" How tedious and tasteless the hours, 

When Jesus no longer I see ; 
Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers, 

Have all lost their sweetness to me." 

Oh, that this tender and intense appreciation of 
the favor and presence of God may enthrone itself 
within us all ! To our souls, may the glance of the 
the reconciled countenance of God, eclipse the uni- 
verse ; as all the glittering stars of the firmament 
are shrouded from sight, buried, ocean-deep, under 
the flooding light of the uprising sun; may we ever 
say for ourselves, singly, u Whom have I in heaven 
but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire 
besides thee !" 



SPRIXG-. 35 

The Church rejoices, when, after a season of bar- 
renness or of tribulation. God comes again in the 
effusions of his Spirit, and in the benedictions of his 
Providence. 

Not to be prolix, we shall pass over the emble- 
matic meaning of Spring in reference to the millen- 
nial triumph which the Church will enjoy, after ages 
of conflict, and notice, briefly, its significance in re- 
lation to the destiny of the individual Christian. 
While we do not believe that a close, and logically 
accurate, analogy, may be traced, between the 
bursting forth of leaf and flower, in the Spring- 
time, and the resurrection of the body ; yet, there is 
an analogy sufficiently clear, to cheer the heart, and 
confirm the faith of the Christian — whose pillar of 
faith in the resurrection, is the word of Him who 
has said, "I am the resurrection and the life ; he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall 
he live : And whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." With this charter of triumph, 
who would not read lessons of hope in the leaves 
and flowers of Spring ! Oh. with green myrtles and 
opening roses, and springing grass and flowers, 
around the graves of our cherished dead — with cool, 



36 SPRING. 

soft breezes blowing through, the branches "which 
bend over those graves, and shed their dewy bless- 
ings there, who does not think of the times of the 
restitution of all things ! Who does not rejoice, 
amidst such surroundings, that death w T ill, surely, 
be swallowed up in victory — that restored man- 
hood will be sealed with eternal life — a life so ex- 
uberant and glorious, that it laughs at the thought 
of pause and paralysis in its flow, " as the sea 
laughs at palsy for its billows, as the morning 
laughs at old age and wrinkles for itself!" Oh, 
who, who does not rejoice that there is a rapturous, 
gushing life, beyond the sepulchre, in which the 
soul shall unfold its powers with a glory which is 
but faintly typed, by that triumphal outburst of life 
which the rose makes, when, rending asunder the 
green leaves of its calyx, it breaks from the tight- 
clasped bud of April, and vaults into the freedom, 
and the flush, of May and June ! 

Closely linked with the preceding thought, and to 
some extent w T rapped up in it, is another which is 
worthy of distinct statement. Spring is the sym- 
bol of promise. 

The flower is but a stage, in the highway of 



SPRING. 37 

vegetable life, towards the goal of fruition. That 
this stage of development should be attended, by 
so much that is inspiring and lovely, is only an- 
other illustration of that argument for the goodness 
of God, which becomes more grandly cumulative, 
the more thoroughly and extensively we explore 
the universe which has sprung from his creative 
fiat. 

Naturally, therefore, and without any violence of 
thought, of the true harmony of things, we read in 
the Spring landscapes, pledges of coming ages of 
moral glory for the Church, — and of heaven for the 
soul. There are pledges given by them not only of 
glory, but of high degrees, grade on grade of 
glory. Poetry may be called the highest style of 
truth, as it is the soul anticipating, unconsciously it 
may be, in sweet longings w T hich she struggles to 
express in song, the excellencies of her future al- 
lotment. Poetry, therefore, is practical prophecy — 
written on the tablets of consciousness, with all the 
light and loveliness of the soul's yearnings after the 
pure and good, the noble and the happy. * " It 
seems to us the divinest of all arts ; for it is the 

* Charming. 



38 SPRING. 

breathing or expression of that principle or senti- 
ment, which is deepest and sublimest in human na- 
ture; we mean, of that thirst or aspiration, to 
which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something 
purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, 
and thrilling than ordinary and real life affords." 
The forests, fields, flowers, and streams of Spring 
are a living poem — a poem in action. They are 
thus, doubly, by physiological fact and poetic action, 
invested with the spirit of prophecy. The blessings 
and beauties of the present are proofs of the still 
greater blessings yet to be realized. Look, then, 
at the richness spread before the eye, under the 
magic breath of Spring ; and think of the extent of 
the universe of beautiful life, likewise invested with 
a spirit of promise ; and who can else than be lost 
in noble hopes of the coming glory, to which the 
soul is an heir through the faith of Christ Jesus ! 
Take, if you please, the following illustration of 
this line of thought, furnished by Lamartine in his 
description of a little mountain valley which he 
visited in Syria : 

" All the valley was hung with the same moving 
current of foliage, and carpeted with mosses and 



SPRING. 39 

redundant vegetation. We could not restrain an 
exclamation at every step. I never remember to 
have seen so much life in nature heaped together 
and overflowing in so small a space. We followed 
the whole length of this valley, seating ourselves 
from time to time where the shadows were most 
cool, and striking the verdure now and then to force 
out gusts of delicious odors, and myriads of insects, 
which rose like golden dust out of its bosom. How 
great is the Creator ! How profound and infinite 
the source from whence such life, such splendor, and 
such goodness flow ! If there is so much to see, to 
admire, to astonish, to astound, in this single corner 
of universal nature, what will it be when the curtain 
of all worlds shall be raised up for us, and that we 
shall see the wondrous work complete and without 
end! ' ' 3 If the redeemed inherit, hereafter, such splend- 
or of sense, arising from the luxuriant life open to their 
inspection, what may we not suppose to be the intel- 
lectual and moral glories crowning their souls for- 
ever ! 

Verily, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither have entered into the heart of man, the 
things which God hath prepared for them that love 



40 SPRING. 

him." "Behold, what manner of love the Father 
hath bestowed npon us, that we should be called the 
sons of God. Beloved, now are w T e the sons of 
God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; 
but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall 
be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." How 
true it is, considering the many kinds and degrees 
of blessing entering into the inheritance of the 
saved in Christ, that the soul shall be crowned with 
a " far more exceeding (or an exceeding upon an 
exceeding) and eternal weight of glory !" But after 
all that may be said of the splendors of the season 
in this or any other land, Spring is, emphatically, only 
the symbol of promise. It does not shadow forth, 
either in degree or quality, all the truth of heaven. 
It is the most complete expression earth can give, 
of jubilant, triumphant life. But he who inter- 
prets the soft, muffled voices of nature, which the 
mass of men hear and heed not, and thus realizes 
the fiction of the sweet chimes flung abroad by the 
wheeling spheres ; chimes which are too delicate for 
mortal ears, has heard utterances of a tender truth 
touching our earthly allotment, as contrasted with 
the heavenly. Sometimes on a Spring evening, 



SPRING. 41 

even in merry May, there comes a pause, so far as 
sense is concerned, in the rapturous rush of its life. 
The sky is filmy, the sun is bronzed, and there is 
a mournful cry of the rough throated frogs rising 
from the marshes ; while the subdued wind steals 
through the forest depths, and flows over the bend- 
ing grass of the meadows, with that peculiar, mourn- 
ful, solemn murmur which marks it, often, when 
sweeping across solitary mountain summits. The 
soul is thrown back upon itself, and instinctively, 
involuntarily, is tinged with a sweet sadness which 
utters itself in a half smothered sigh. Here is the 
tender truth evolved from the scene, and this atti- 
tude of soul : The human spirit is never, in this 
life, altogether and absolutely happy. It may seem 
so, think itself so, for the time being. But, are 
there not always unsatisfied longings in the soul, 
longings which will not, cannot, be satisfied on 
earth ? And then, oft-times, even in moments of 
ecstasy, are there not mingling with its joyous 
strains, half unconsciously it maybe, plaintive semi- 
tones, emitted from the depths of the being ? "What 
heart is there which has not, slumbering in its 
" depths below depths," buried griefs, half forgotten 



42 SPRING. 

sorrows, which stream their influence along the 
pathway of life as star-dust streams in the heavens ; 
palpable, real, though the stars which are its sour- 
ces, are shrouded from the eye — in the far off si- 
lences and solitudes of space ! There are no hearts 
of men without cicatrized wounds ; healed indeed, 
but still leaving their marks, as memorials of the 
festering and frettings of the past. A thousand 
things, both joyous and sad, sleep down in the 
depths of the souls of men ; things which are unno- 
ticed in the onrush of life, just as the smoothly 
worn and polished pebbles, and myriads of crimson- 
ed shells, sleep, unseen, in the beds of the rushing 
rivers. In heaven it will be far otherwise than on 
earth. There will be no sorrow there at all ; all 
griefs shall have furled their raven wings, and fled 
away. It will be then and there, all blessing, and 
no blight ; all life, and no death ; Spring-time with 
its glory, while its muffled voices of sadness will be 
hushed forever ! In this connection, remember that 
the same Bible which so truly interprets humanity, 
as coming from Him who created, and, therefore, 
knows all that is in man ; and which talks of " joy 
unspeakable and full of glory;" of "peace that 



SPRING. 43 

passeth understanding," has other utterances, alas ! 
for a sin smitten race, but too full of meaning. 
Hear the language of Paul, himself a model of, 
spiritually speaking, sound and healthy manhood : 
" For we know that the whole creation groaneth 
and travaileth in pain together until now. And not 
only they, but ourselves also (Christians) which 
have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body." Sin is, indeed, 
an " evil thing and bitter." Just as the complex 
and delicate net work of nerves permeates the tis- 
sues, and ramifies every part of the human frame, 
so, for the present, in its direct action, or indirect 
influences and results, sin thrills with sadness, 
more or less keenly, all the organism of life. The 
banner of completed triumph over it, which is in- 
scribed with — Love, flouts, alone, from the ramparts, 
of that city whose walls are jasper, and whose 
gates are pearl ! 

Before we leave this delightful and fruitful theme, 
we observe that, Spring is the call of God to go 
air oad and rejoice in his ivories. The religious truth 
couched in this invitation to rejoice in the bright 



44 SPRING. 

things of Spring, is, that the Church shall diligently 
improve times of refreshing from on high ; that she 
shall roll the chariot of salvation rapidly along the 
highways of Providence which God shall build. Or, 
applying the same truth to individuals, that, whilst 
religious privileges abound, and the Holy Spirit is 
speaking in the soul ; wooing it to salvation, more 
gently than the Dove coos in the recesses of the 
wild-wood, then, there be diligence ; an earnest 
working out of salvation ; lest, mercies slighted, 
the soul should be swathed with eternal sorrow. 
But, as appropriate to our present mode of treating 
the text, dwelling on its literal meaning— is there 
not a lesson of high import to men ? It is one that 
many ought to learn, — even to study, and delight in 
the ivor~ks of (rod, in physical nature. Alas ! what 
deficiency of taste, and obscurity of view, prevails 
touching this matter. Thousands more than we 
think of, with quick eyesight, yet pass through a life- 
time, smitten with mournful blindness. Myriads 
on myriads of bright and blessed things does God 
fling around their patlrway, to cheer and thrill, but 
they see, and feel them not. There are thousands 
who could, if they w T ould, (may God be very gra- 



SPRING. 45 

cious to those whose hard lot absolutely forbids the 
attempt !) and yet rarely do, make their escape, for 
a few hours, from the bricks and mortar, and ever- 
lasting din and uproar of city life, to revel on the 
forests and fields which are mantled with the richness 
of Spring. There are not wanting, possibly, those 
whose souls have become so indurated by, and en- 
crusted with, mere matter of fact worlclliness, (and 
we mean no disregard of the noble duties of manu- 
facture and commerce, of the high activities of life,) 
that a relish for these things is looked upon with a 
feeling kindred to contempt. They think it sickly 
and enervating to love flowers, which have em- 
ployed the thoughts and skill of God himself. They 
style it dreamy romance, to rejoice in the fresh 
breath of hills and valleys. Anclyet, some of these 
same persons w T ill crowd into hot rooms, expending 
hard-gotten treasure for the privilege ; and listen 
with eagerness, all ear, to inferior music ; and gaze 
with wrapt soul, all eye, on the coarse panoramas 
of second and third rate artists — forgetting that 
God's choristers, the wild birds, are pinging freely 
in the sun-lighted and breeze-fanned chambers of the 
forest ! They overlook the fact that all the year 



46 SPRING. 

long, hard by them, there is unrolling evermore, 
day and night, a succession of beautiful and majes- 
tic scenes on which the very angels must delight to 
look — there is unfolded such blending of light and 
shade ; such richness and delicacy of coloring, as 
transcend all the attempts of the most brilliant 
human artist. And well do we say this, u For na- 
ture is the art of God/' Let such read the one 
hundred and fourth psalm, all breathing with the 
incense of praise, which is forever arising from the 
pure works of the Creator. Let them be imbued 
with its spirit, which cries in admiration and rever- 
ence, " Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in 
wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of 
thy riches." 

Let them remember its statement that, "the Lord 
shall rejoice in his works," natural, as well as provi- 
dential and gracious ; then let them hear the call 
of the text, " Arise and come away" — and look 
abroad on the earth in the gushing light, and amidst 
the flowing song of Spring-time. Cultivate, my 
hearers, a lively appreciation of the grand and 
beautiful in nature. It will do you good. It will 
soothe you in sorrow, and enhance your innocent 



SPRING. 47 

joys. The tendency of such appreciation, blended 
with the guiding grace of God, is to make you pure 
and holy, to adorn you with sincere and lofty char- 
acter. Learn to 

" Love the haunts of nature, 
Love the sunshine of the meadow, 
Love the shadow of the forest, 
Love the wind among the branches, 
And the rain shower and the snow storm, 
And the rushing of great rivers 
Through their palisades of pine-trees, 
And the thunder in the mountains, 
Whose innumerable echoes 
Flap like eagles in their eyries,-" 

and such love will elevate and refine your souls. 
Listen to the blithe voices of nature which break 
on the ear by day ; and listen to those other 
spirit voices which, in the hush and silence of the 
night, break in upon the reverent soul, from moun- 
tain, and plain, and gently gliding river ; from earth 
and sky — with a mellow majesty greater by far than 
the deep boom of ocean surfs or the outbursts of 
distant storms. Voices they are which, amidst the 
profound silence and hush of physical sounds, roll in 
upon the soul, but the more grandly and impress- 



48 SPRING. 

ively, a thunder anthem, about the greatness of 
God, the stupendousness of the universe, and of 
human destiny ! And now we close. Let us cher- 
ish lively hopes of the future, as drawn from the 
splendor of Spring. Let us, aided by the grace of 
God, so live, that when the wintry time of our tribu- 
lation and struggle on earth shall be ended, we shall 
exclaim with ecstasy, " The voice of my beloved !"— 
we shall hear the voice of Jesus, crowning us with 
rest and peace — at last. When that voice is heard, 
the flowers of pure joy will spring up in the heart, 
more thickly than the violets on the hillsides and 
in the valleys ; more thickly than the opening roses 
of May. Right blessed — will be the greeting of his 
voice. It will be the call of entrance on that 
Spring, around which, shadows shall never gather, 
and in which, the redeemed of Christ Jesus shall walk 
abroad amidst the clustering munificences of Jeho- 
vah — and be sad no more ! 



SERMON ON SUMMER. 

4 



SUMMER. 



" The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not 
saved." — Jeremiah, viii. 20. 

The text is a prophetic representation of the 
deep sorrow of God's people — lamenting that help 
has not come from their allies, that they are given 
over to the hands of their cruel Chaldean enemies. 
The language employed is richly suggestive of beau- 
tiful and useful thought. Glorious Summer, which, 
with some of its practical instructions, is my present 
theme, is illustratively introduced to our notice by 
an allusion to its chief element of interest. Mani- 
fold and exquisite as are the charms of this season 
of sunny splendor, all will agree that the swelling 
knoll, with its yellow stalks ripe for the sweep of the 
sickle — rustling and rocking in the breeze, is the 

51 



52 SUMMER. 

croivning glory of Summer. It will not, however, 
be a violation of true taste, if, under the law of 
suggestion, we ramble away somewhat from this 
central feature of Summer, and advert to other as- 
pects of the season ; not forgetting, of course, to 
return again to the joyous harvest time. 

Nor is it requisite in this discourse that we 
should confine us to the phenomena of an Oriental 
season. The resemblance will be sufficiently close 
to warrant us in descanting on Summer, as it robes 
our own land with all that is grateful to the eye ; as 
it exhilarates us with living fragrance, and greets 
us with gladsome sounds — sounds which are rich and 
sweet to the ear. 

The early portion of Summer, is the time of exu- 
berant life. June is the brief period when the vege- 
table creation riots in richness ; is arrayed with su- 
perlative flush and brilliance of color : when the air 
is pure and invigorating ; the sky is clear, and the 
clouds are massy and luscious. Turn where we may 
at this time of bursting, blooming, luxuriance of 
life, and the proofs greet us that God is good ; that 
the earth is beautiful. Do we gaze around many 
" Sweet Homes," which are such by the ties of 



SUMMER. 53 

affection that link together the loving hearts that 
dwell there ; and which are sweet, as the rewards 
to years of patient labor, and by the adornments 
and elegancies of refined taste. How goodly the 
prospect ! Sweeping away out from, and around, 
piazza and balcony, is the spacious court, diversi- 
fied with winding walks. Here, it spreads out before 
the eye as the level lawn, and there, it rolls up in 
ridges, or towers in mounds fringed and tufted with 
flowers. All around it are trees standing in stately 
magnificence ; the birds, oft-times singing blithely 
among the swinging branches and matted leaves. 
Elegant as is the court, it is but the fitting harbin- 
ger to the splendors of the noble family garden, 
which, in the rear of the mansion, reveals its mazy 
walks and flashing vistas. Here, are pathways 
margined with well trimmed hedges, whose smooth 
leaves glance in the sunlight ; and whose thick 
growing branches fling around a cooling shade. 
Here are secluded alcoves, where one can realize a 
quiet so deep, a hush so still, that he can almost 
hear his own heart's solemn throbbings. Farther 
along the wilderness of beauty stands the light 
bower, studded around with flowers of various shape 



54 SUMMER. 

and hue ; while trailing amidst its lattice work, and 
climbing around the graceful dome, is the sweet 
Honey-suckle — shedding its precious fragrance on 
all the air. It is indeed a bower of loveliness — 
where the breeze murmurs so low and soft, that it 
would seem as if it loved to nestle there, and breathe 
its freshness right into the golden and crimson 
hearts of the flowers. Then — mark how lines of 
gorgeous and manifold colors greet the eye. There 
they are before you— right lines — curved lines, and 
interspersed with clumps of pure bloom. The Lily 
of the Valley modestly salutes you with a smile of 
light. The red Fuchsia glares at you triumphantly 
as it waves its glowing face in the wind. The gay 
Pink thrills you with its fanciful hues and spicy 
odor. All around you are tufts and banks of Roses, 
white, yellow, crimson, many-leaved Roses, nodding 
and swinging on their agile stems, as if conscious, 
that to them, rightfully, belongs the supremacy of 
the beautiful in color — the sceptre of flowers. Poss- 
ibly, as you wander, you will find, encircled with 
greenness, and profusion of fragrance and color — 
made doubly sweet and bright by its own play, a 
fairy fountain. How ravishingly it scatters its 



SUMMER. 00 

pearly drops — showers all the day long its refresh- 
ing mists and rainbow splendors ! Surely here, in 
such a place, one may exclaim, u If this be earth, 
what must heaven be ! ,M To saunter along those 
walks, and linger by bower and fountain, furnishes 
one of those proofs which this life occasionally yields 
— that there are places, scenes, times, things on 
~\ which vividly mirror even heaven. The rural 
landscape is, also, invested with a loveliness which 
will rivet the earnest and admiring gaze. The mea- 
dows are bright with bending grass. The grain 
fields sweeping down the valleys, up and around the 
»s 3 with tall, luxuriant stalks maturing for the 
harvest, and surging in the wind, roll afar out before 
the eye. like the breast and billows of an emerald 
sea. The forests which deck and belt the fields, 
and robe the hills, are rejoicing in the full flow of 
their life currents. The bark of the trees is fresh and 
juicy : the full spread and thick hanging leaves are 
glgssy and moist. The luxuriant branches stream 
toss themselves before the breeze — gaily as the 
nodding plumes of warriors. Withal^ the breath of 
the forest is sweet: through all its dark green aisles 
there dwells an invigorating fragrance, which rivals 



56 SUMMEK. 

the perfume flowing forth from cultured flower beds. 
The forest, indeed, has its own flower plots. Its 
green-sward is sprinkled and spotted over with flower 
cups, ranging in color, from deep purple to snowy 
whiteness. The birds sing lustily, as if realizing 
that they are the choristers of this time of nature's 
jubilee. The lark lifts aloud his shrill strain, which 
floats up and sweeps off on the wings of the breeze, 
while he still nestles in the rank grass of the mea- 
dow. 5 The robin, perched on the rocking summit of 
some noble tree, rolls out his rapturous lays, as 
though struggling with the ecstasy of the very soul 
of song. Crowning all other voices of melody which 
ring over the fields, and echo along the valleys and 
through the wild-woods — is the honeyed warble of 
the thrush, like a brief and brilliant interlude — clear, 
sonorous, richer than the silvery swell of the bugle. 
The forest recesses love to reverberate it. Heard once, 
it can never be forgotten. The rivers now are 
brimming full, and as they glide along their leafy, 
grassy, flower-fringed banks ; whispering and ripp- 
ling to the overhanging woods as they glide; 
while, of a tranquil afternoon, the hot sun flings 
down on their dimpled breasts torrents of golden 



SUMMER. 57 

light ; they seem as if vast floods of pure and glow- 
ing oil were rolling grandly down to the sea. The 
air of early June is also sweet and fresh, like that 
which fans mountain brows, or sweeps the glassy 
breasts of rivers. The skies are not only azure, 
but burnished azure, variegated with grea^t, bright 
clouds, piled up like crags and cones of alabaster. 
A heaven— of tropical softness — wraps itself around 
all the gushing loveliness of the quickened, prolific, 
redolent earth. As one rushes through the land in 
sympathy with the thunder pulses of victorious cars, 
while scenes like these we have been describing, are 
passing rapidly before him ; and immediately along 
his pathway of power, the red clover and the grace- 
ful ferns are rolling in the breeze ; the grasses gleam 
as the sheen of armor, while bright eyed daisies are 
rollicking and laughing in the sunlight, he cannot 
else than rejoice in June. Aye, who would not 
thank God for June, the month of gorgeous clouds, 
and fragrant forests, and flowing bird-song ; who 
would not thank God for flower-flushed, zephyr- 
fanned, incense-breathing June ! As the month wears 
away, the sun reaches his greatest altitude in the 
heavens. His beams stream down fiercely on the 



58 SUMMER. 

saturated earth, causing vegetation to advance rap- 
idly to maturity. And, now, the harvest time has 
come. See the land as it swells out before the eye 
in the effulgence of noon ! The ripened grass 
stands thick and fragrant, ready for the mower's 
scythe. The forests are still and shady; the 
earth is carpeted in places with a glow of gold, as 
the sunlight bursts through the spaces of foliage. 
The hot sun of noon has hushed all tumult. Man 
seeks the friendly covert of home. Animals cower 
into forest retreats ; even the blithe birds, burying 
their bright forms amidst matted leaves, are for the 
time, mute and songless. The fields of grain which 
sweep around the familiar home of the farmer, the 
home, also, of his fathers, and stretch away till they 
are fringed and hemmed in with the forests, are 
clothed with peculiar beauty. The stalks have shot 
forth till now, having gained the fullness of their 
height and strength, they are tall and yellow; their 
summits gracefully bending under the weight of well 
filled ears. And how lovely are these ! As they hang 
and stream from their stately stalks, what are they but 
the myriad plumes and banners which genial peace and 
loving plenty fling abroad, to rejoice in the sunlight 



SUMMER. 59 

and the breeze ! Richer are they to the heart than all 
the gay banners -which gory war may flout before 
the eye. But now they are full of fascination tc 
the eye, as well as to the heart ; for the glaring sun, 
which has driven man and bird and beast to shady 
shelter, rolls down billows and floods of molten 
splendor upon the flowing fields, till the barbed 
ears with all their bristling spikes are richly glowing, 
as if each ear were fringed around with a rampart 
— built of arrow* of light. Glorious is the spectacle, 
glorious is the time. It is high noon of the day ; 
high noon of the year ; and high noon of the as- 
cending, gathering mercies of God. Aye, it is 
coronation time ! In the showering sunlight, God 
is crowning the year with his goodness. TTell may 
there be silence at such a time — it is the silence of 
ivorsMp ! Though no real voice may greet the ear, 
still from the mute forest, radiant sun, and glowing 
fields, the innermost soul receives the challenge of 
adoration. It is this, even this : " The Lord is in 
his holy temple ; let all the earth keep silence before 
him." But, occasionally, the silence is broken: a 
low wind whispers among the forest leaves ; toys 
with the yellow ears-; and causes the rich, dry stalks 



60 SUMMER. 

to rattle out an anthem of devout joy. And that 
wind of the summer noon, how full it is of solemn 
meaning! "Whilst I stood/' says one, "a solemn 
wind began to blow— the most mournful that ear ever 
heard. Mournful ! that is saying nothing. It was 
a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a 
hundred centuries. Many times since, upon a sum- 
mer day, when the sum is about the hottest, I have 
remarked the same wind arising; and uttering the 
same hollow, solemn, Memnonian, but saintly swell ; 
it is in this world the one sole, audible, symbol of 
eternity.'' 

When the fields are ripe, man is ready for the 
gathering. The mower, as he moves through the 
meadows, leaves piled and perfumed swaths as the 
memorials of his pathway of toil. Golden cones 
of banked grain which has rattled down before the 
tread of the reaper, are now studding the spaces 
which recently waved at the breath of the breeze, 
as gently swells the summer sea. Soon, also, the 
lofty and trimmed stack is ready to brave the driv- 
ing rains of Autumn, and the fury of Wintry storms. 
And, then, as huge barns are piled to the rooftree 
with yellow sheaves, of truer value than the dust 



SUMMER. 61 

of Ophir, there is joy and gladness in the land. 
Flashing eyes, throbbing hearts, and rino-mo; voices — 

Or/ 7 O O O 

hail the " Harvest Home." It is a well grounded 
joy. Joy it is that the anxieties, watchings, and 
fatiguing labors of many month 3 are now at a close. 
Gladness thrills the soul because now the mildew may 
not blast ; the canker worm may not devour ; and 
gaunt famine may not stalk through the land, fill- 
ing it with sorrow and lamentation. It is a real 
and noble joy, that of the harvest. "While it may not 
equal, yet, it is honored as the image of, the rapture 
created in the heart by the Divine smile. " There be 
many that say, Who will show us any good ? Lord, 
lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. 
Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in 
the time that their corn and their wine increased. " 
Psalm iv. 6, 7. 

Late Summer — is midsummer chastened and sub- 
dued. The sun gradually loses his strength, and 
the wind sinks into the tenderness, the fixed, semi- 
tone sadness, which heralds Autumn. This portion 
of the season, however, with us of this land, has one 
feature which makes it rival, as to the agricultural 
landscape — the mellow loveliness of the harvest 



62 SUMMER. 

time. Certainly, one of the finest scenes which can 
meet the eye, is the huge maize field of August. 
The massive and high stalks claim our notice as a 
triumphal leaping up and aloft of vegetable life. 
Proudly wave the stamina — clustered in long and 
flowing tassels, and scattering abroad the yellow 
pollen, which showers down, to greet and quicken 
with life the silken pistils, which, themselves, are 
rooted on rows of polished grains — hastening on, 
in the ceaseless marches of life, unto the golden 
goal of Autumn. Then, the broad and wide sweep- 
ing blades rustle so gaily in the breeze, and glance 
so richly in the sunlight. Look around thee, thou 
child of nature ! Is there not a forest of nodding 
plumes ; are there not ranks of silken, streaming 
pennons ; while the rocking blades, which rattle as 
the rain drops on forest leaves, gleam as the flash 
of myriads of lance points ? The very wind, com- 
ing forth from its spreadings, freighted with a per- 
fume rich as that it inhales from violet banks, roll- 
icks and rushes voluptuously through the long green 
avenues of the corn-field, — all whose paths drop fat- 
ness. 

We have already alluded to the massive and 



SUMMER. 63 

bright clouds of June. The whole season of Sum- 
mer is characterized by great variety and beauty 
of cloud scenery. One of the best positions for 
noticing this pageantry with fine effect, is in some 
deep defile of the hills or mountains, with woody 
crags on either hand. As you move along the 
lonely road on some tranquil Summer afternoon, 
huge white clouds will be seen sweeping over the 
crests of the cliffs with an inexpressible pomp. They 
seem, as they hurriedly move their vast volumes, as 
if typing the august march of human destinies — the 
ever trooping, forever rushing events of individual 
and national history. What invests them with 
thrilling interest is this : Seen at an angle over the 
face of the crag, their skirts droop below the range 
of the eye, and, thus, they seem as if trailing their 
massy, foamy fringes— right among the boughs, and 
through the tressy summits of the trees. 

It is, however, during the morning and evening, 
while the sun is ascending or descending, that the 
vapors of the sky are robed with prismatic colors. 
Hear an experience, illustrating the gorgeousness of 
eventide. We were moving, westward, to the island 
of Mackinaw — which- w r as in sight. The sun, fall, 



64 SUMMER. 

and blazing in gold, sank gently to the waves; 
seemed, to the eve, to tremble for a moment ; then, 
as rolling down the depths, looked like a dome of 
flame ; and, still, again, in descending lower, lifted 
his fiery brow aloft from the water like an angry 
volcanic peak ; and then flung a farewell smile upon 
the scene he was leaving behind him. The sun 
buried in the waves, Mackinaw now attracted atten- 
tion with its bold shores, rising up sternly, and re- 
ceding towards the interior like a cone. The pre- 
cipitous island was dusky and wild in the shadows 
of twilight ; while far behind, in the west, were the 
bright sun-burnished bands of summer evening: films, 
conspicuous among them, fibres of delicate green,- 
presenting a finish to the scene, which was one of 
such beauty and savage sublimity, that graven for- 
ever, in my soul, is sunset in the straits of Mack- 
inaw. 

The rain showers of Summer, being often local, 
seem to bring us into an immediate contact with 
the goodness of the Supreme Being. Who can fail 
of being moved and mellowed — when he sees, in the 
distance, the dark and misty trail of the Summer 
shower ; shedding its life-giving drops on this forest 



SUMMER. 65 

and that field ; and leaving behind it proofs that 
God careth for the thirsty land. 

One of the attractive features of Summer is — its 
delicious moonlights. "When the strife and uproar of 
the day is over-past ; when the air has lowered its 
temperature, and now cools the hot and weary brow ; 
while pure dews are floating around, having extracted 
the fragrance of rose banks and woodbine-mantled 
bowers ; and the full moon sails through the dark 
spaces of heaven, bathing forest and field ; city and 
river; mountain and valley; land and sea; with a 
weird, silvery light — do not myriads of hearts feel a 
loveliness in the scene which the tongue cannot ut- 
ter ! And then in the heaving city, past the noon 
of night ; when the rattle and roar of wheels, and 
clattering footsteps of rushing multitudes, have 
ceased to vex the air — there is deep silence, doubly 
deep because of the tumult which has reigned ; 
silence broken, only, by the lonely chirp of the 
cricket — how impressively beautiful, solemn, the 
scene and the hour ! The clear moon seems as if 
irradiating an earth of sealed sepulchres. As the 
cool night wind fans the temples, which but a few 

hours before were throbbing so feverishly, it seems 
5 



66 SUMMER. 

as if the soul could almost anticipate the quiet of 
paradise, and realize, somewhat, of the exhilarating 
peace of those who are shut in with God, and have 
left the " earth, with its sorrows and graves, behind 
them forever." 

We shall close this portion of our discourse with 
the remark that Summer has its elements of inter- 
est on the sea, as well as on the shore. Never shall 
I forget the rest of the summer sea, as witnessed on 
Superior, the Big-Sea-Water of the untutored Indian. 
It was on a July afternoon, one of those afternoons 
which grow " heavy with the heat and silence." The 
frowning mountains on our left were, under the 
slanting sunrays, in one of the brightest lights they 
assume in all the year. The beach, with its sand 
and stones, roundings and ravines, was in clear re- 
lief. Immediately around, and far east and west, 
and away out over the solitudes of the north spread- 
ings of the lake, the water was an illuminated ex- 
panse of unruffled rest, scarcely a perceptible mo- 
tion in it. A feeling of awe was half unconscious- 
ly resting on the mind, arising from the thought 
that it was so mysteriously deep, as well as strangely 
calm. Away, and still away, in the indefinable dis- 



SUMMER. 67 

tance, it swept its stupendous breast of deep, deep, 
delicate blue, mantled with thin veils and dark con- 
volutions and masses of mellow haze. Xow I know, 
as I never could have known without witnessing 
such a scene, what is the unutterable tranquillity, 
the unutterable significancy of — the sleep of the sum- 
mer sea. The tongue cannot utter it, the pen can- 
not sketch it, but still the heart can feel it — grandly, 
soothingly, it broods over the soul as the — far-spread- 
ing and sunlit haze on the sea — fold on fold of 
sublimed and clear azure flooded and interwoven with 
golden light, earth's sweet shadow of the benedic- 
tions of God as they brood throughout all the am- 
plitudes, and over all the life, of heaven. 

Blended with the forms of beauty which predomi- 
nate during the summer, are occasional creations 
of gloom and grandeur ; born out of its oppressive 
heats. Scarcely any of the appearances of physi- 
cal nature can rival the solemn, majesty of the sum- 
mer storm. See it — as it gathers, sweeps, devas- 
tates, and then dies away in mists, belts, and bows of 
prismatic glory ; leaving behind it laughing rills ; 
leaping, roaring brooks :— forest and field; tree and 
shrub ; leaf and flower, — sparkling and rejoicing in 



68 SUMMER. 

its drops of blessing — while the pure, blue heaven 
above, bends over the buoyant earth, as the crown 
and seal of a scene, so rich and sweet — that it is, 
at once, an index of the compassions of the Su- 
preme Father, to the earth that now is — and a har- 
binger of the freshness and splendor of the better 
time, when, after the throes of struggle and storm- 
heavings of ages, God shall create all things anew 
— and the redeemed shall walk abroad and rejoice 
in the heritage of a new heaven and a new earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness. See it now — how 
the milky films that fleck the sky, meet together, 
mingle into dark gray — still fret, and foam, and 
gloom, the signals of the clashing clouds, the while, 
the lightnings, which glare, as the glance, and flash, 
as the flying arrows of the Almighty, followed with 
stunning bursts and savage roar of the " earth-shak- 
ing thunder." Lo, the tumult deepens, till the 
frowning sky is all fretted with the hieroglyphics 
of wrath which the lightning traces and carves on 
its scroll of darkness ; and the rolled vapors have 
piled them to the zenith, and planted the bases of 
their black walls on the crests of the hills, and 
crags of the mountains. The pent up treasures of 



SUMMER. 69 

the clouds break forth, now, after such an awful 
heraldry of gloom and thunder — the windows of 
heaven are opened — the fiercely falling rain crashes 
in the wild and lonely woods like pealing musketry. 
It sweeps down the swaying fields, rattles against 
the windows, and roars on the roofs where star- 
tled man dwells — his soul awe-smitten at the 
dark and watery pavilion of Jehovah, in the 
march of his power; and at the voice of the Lord, 
which divideth the flames of fire, that flash from 
one end of heaven unto the other. Yes, the voice 
of the Lord is on the land and on the waters ; the 
God of glory thundereth. The sea shudders; the 
solid land shakes; and, even the mighty mountains 
move, leap, as though they would break from their 
rocky roots ; tear away from their deep founda- 
tions ; — Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. 
But a little while — and the gloom and fury are gone. 
The birds sing in the branches, from which the lin- 
gering drops are slowly pattering on the moist- 
ground ; and the rose lifts up its ruddy face, wreathed 
in crystal — the linked drops that rim it round. The 
sun looks out again, lovingly, from his place in the 
heavens which are bright, now, like polished ame- 



70 SUMMER. 

thyst, and decked with pure, massive clouds, "which, 
are fringed with silver ; while the rainbow smiles in 
the east. The full rivulets leap joyfully along their 
channels which wind through glistening meadows ; 
while all the landscape glows as an emerald vesture, 
adorned with flower tints, and the. sparkling drops 
of the shower. The earth is at rest; summer 
beauty reigns again ; and man rejoices in the good- 
ness of his God ! 

The lessons which may be drawn from Summer, 
as an interesting portion of that varied year which 
is so full of God — are many and beautiful. At some 
of them we shall glance briefly ; and hasten to a 
conclusion of the service of the hour. 

Its peculiarity, as distinguished from the other 
seasons of the year, is that — of having efflorescence 
and fruitage combined. It is therefore, pre-emi- 
nently, an emblem of heaven — where all things, 
beautiful and great, shall be clustered for the bliss 
of glorified humanity; that heritage of honor, in 
which the lovely and the useful ; the delicate and 
the strong ; the imaginative ; the emotional, and 
the intellectual — shall, all, be completely harmon- 
ized, and produce, together, the mighty river of hu- 



SUMMER. 71 

man happiness, which shall roll on gloriously, through 
the sunny spreadings of the everlasting. In heaven 
there shall be no schism in the soul; all its purged 
powers shall work sweetly together, and the blithe- 
ness of youth shall be reconciled with the maturity 
of age — There, as here in the Summer time — the 
freshness of Spring, the fruitage of Autumn, and 
the flushed splendors of Summer — are all fused to- 
gether — the soul in all its faculties, and aspirations, 
shall be fully and forever satisfied. 

As linked with this thought, Summer a type of 
heaven, we may observe — that it teaches, also, alike 
with Spring, the effulgence, the thronging glories of 
that heaven, because Summer is but a living exponent 
of the gushing goodness of the Supreme Being. If 
he be so lavish, here, on this earth, which has been 
smitten of sin, what may we not expect to be real- 
ized by all that believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
that inheritance where every object and association 
will speak of fruition and gracious reward ! 

4i By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out 
into a place which he should after receive for an 
inheritance, obeyed : and he went out, not knowing 
whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land 



72 SUMMER. 

of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tab- 
ernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him 
of the same promise : For he looked for a city 
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker 
is God." Just as Abraham, very possibly, knowing 
that Canaan was a type of heaven, received comfort 
and instruction from the scenes around him in his 
wanderings through the land of promise; just as 
he may be supposed to have read in the massy sides 
and towering summits of Lebanon, mantled and 
crowned with pure blue haze ; to have read in the 
plain of Esdraelon, before it was stained with the 
blood of opposing hosts, and shaken with the shocks 
of battle ; to have read in the sweet and flower- 
decked vale of Hebron — utterances of the majesty 
and glory of his immortality ; — so, in some measure, 
it is the privilege of all who love our Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity — to hear holy utterances of hea- 
ven, flowing out from the green meadows, the cells 
of the flowers, and from the whispering leaves of 
Summer. 

If, here, stalk, leaf, flower, grasses, grain, trees, and 
tinted fruits, present scenes of inexpressible loveli- 
ness, what shall we not look for, not only to the 



SUMMER. 73 

sense, but to the soul, in the higher hereafter. If 
the prophecy, of a luxuriantly decked earth and 
tinged sky, be so brilliant and gorgeous, what shall 
be the glory of fulfillment, in a heaven purchased for 
us with u the precious blood of Christ" 

Summer presents us with a heart-moving illustra- 
tion of the fragile character of earthly things. 
While Autumn has its showers of withered leaves, 
and rocks mournfully in the wind, its withered 
boughs, " the bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet 
birds sang;" so Summer has its showers of falling 
flowers. Go where we will; over the meadow or 
the mountain ; through the mazes of the wild-wood, 
or the windings of garden walks, — we shall see the 
ground strewed, sooner or later, with the memorials 
of departed beauty. Again and again, with the 
suceeding years, can we truthfully, and without sen- 
timentality, exclaim, as we rove through scenes 
which lately were radiant with bloom and floral 
beauty : 

" 'Tis the last rose of summer, 
Leffc blooming alone, 
All her lovely companions are 
Faded and gone ; 



74 SUMMER. 

No flow'r of her kindred, 

No rose bud is nigh, 
To reflect back her blushes, 

Or give sigh for sigh !" 

And, thus, in the very presence of earthly things 
that are fresh and fair, we are impressively ad- 
monished to " set our affections on things above, 
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God;" we 
are pointed earnestly to that heaven where beauty 
and bloom ; fragrance and flower — endure forever. 
As it is with the flower, so is it with man. With 
each passing Summer, under the influence of its in- 
tense heats and subtle miasms, how many fade and 
fall ! From the hills of the North, and from the 
savannas and orange groves of the South — the voice 
of wailing mingles with the blithe whispers of bland 
and spice-burdened breezes ; while hearts are shad- 
owed with the desolation and darkness of bereavement 
— right under the soft skies and sunny torrents of 
Summer. 

The stream of time, at this season of the year, 
is like some mighty Delaware, whose broad breast, 
swathed with sweet mists, is strewed, here and there, 
with green flags, which the vexed waters have up* 



SUMMER. 75 

rooted ; and with the flushed faces of water-lilies 
which the rolling waves have rocked from their 
stems ; bright and beautiful things floatingly sol- 
emnly onward to the sea. 

May not faith and hope cheer many a lonely 
spirit, thus clouded and grieving that young man- 
hood and young womanhood have been blasted by 
the destroyer, like the sudden falling of canker 
and mildew on the full blown rose — with the assu- 
rance that though here they are not — there they are — 
mantled with life and rapture — that they live 
now where the emerald, Apocalyptic bow of God's 
compassions, as it arches the throne of his power, 
and stretches out over the tranquil sky of Paradise, 
— never, never darkens ! 

Again : It is, surely, not far-fetched, to say, that 
Summer furnishes us with a striking emblem of the 
destiny of truth. Truth is instinct with life ; "the 
eternal years of God are hers." Just as it is with 
the germ which springs up to the stalk, the flower, 
and ultimately, to the fruit — and mantles the land 
with the richness of Summer, so it is with the de- 
velopment of truth. It proceeds from stage to 
stage of expansion and victory, until it mantles the 



76 SUMMER. 

individual soul with living light. She will always 
reach a goal. Hints, like radiations of the sun, are 
the highways of the soul to the central, substantive, 
luminous body of truth. Hints and beginnings of 
some great truth, are like the fibres of roots to a 
tree — trailing out into the rich soil of the soul — the 
soul itself, like the essences of soil, will clamber 
along the dark and silent avenues of life, till the 
trunk is reached. Up this will she leap, and wind 
her way along the spreading boughs, and many- 
branching twigs, till the fruit is reached — and then 
the cry of triumph is uttered, "Eureka," "Eureka," 
"I have found it," "I have found it." Truth is 
not only expansive, closely linked, continuous, but 
it is multiplicative. One seed may supply the whole 
earth. Thus it is with religious truth. It will 
spring up and bring forth — thirty, sixty, an hun- 
dred fold. The hearts now under its dominion, are 
pledges and earnests of the myriads of other hearts 
that will be brought into the same captivity of 
Christ ; that will, with gladness and thanksgiving, 
" crown him — Lord of all." The truth of the Gos- 
pel will spring, flourish, multiply, until all lands 
will be arrayed with its glory. When it adorns the 



SUMMER. 77 

globe, triumphs over the nations, after the tu- 
mults and darkness of ages — when devotion to God 
and love to man, shall enthrone them among the 
peoples of the earth, as they will, just as surely as 
the germ grows to the flower and fruit of Summer ; 
then, from the rising to the setting sun — will Sum- 
mer reign — It will be the June time of the long wintry 
and barren earth ! 

Once more: Summer teaches us that there are 
times for things ; times when things, undone, are 
never done. The harvest time neglected, passing 
by without effort, grain not gathered, provender not 
secured, want must follow ; poverty and famine will 
ravage. There are seasons in human life, which, if 
diligently improved, Art, Science, Literature may 
be acquired. These seasons not embraced, it is soon 
too late for excellence and eminence. There are 
crises in national history when the right or wrong 
line of action, is fraught with glory or with doom. 
So it is, my hearers, with man's relationship to God 
and Eternity. Here, graciously, the Summer, the 
harvest time, is expanded through years — the Sum- 
mer of grace and salvation smiles and blooms, 
throughout a lifetime. But, if not improved, offers 



fo SUMMER. 

of mercy neglected and rejected, then, a wintry and 
desolate eternity is the period allotted for the lam- 
entation — a lamentation so fall of horror — that 
eternity, alone, can unfold its meaning — " We are 
not saved!" Will you not join me, when I beseech 
God our Father, by the incarnation, cross, and pass- 
ion; by the resurrection, ascension into heaven; 
and, by the ever living intercessions of our Lord Je- 
sus Christ, that he will save yourselves and myself, 
from an utterance of that cry of agony — the expo- 
nent of a horror of great darkness ? But, Oh ! re- 
member, — if saved from that dismal cry, you must 
now work out your salvation with fear and tremb- 
ling, God working in you both to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure. Remember that the future 
is contained in the present, as trunk and branch, 
and flower and fruit, are wrapped up in the 
living germ. As Time is with you, so will he your 
Eternity ! 



SERMON ON AUTUMN, 



A I D II N 



!Fhj fa : I Hid ri jHj solored leai^ as it hangs Ki- 
th : recesses :: th leep, lone woe "?. 
ressire bs _ : — : i . is it shivers and si 

in the breezr. is the fi _..;. yet pensive, beautiful 
a .: — ;: Autumn. 
Die text declares. "We all do :: Le *a :. I 

It ^:j_;::^. therefore. Tery naturally. 

— <. 

First — TheSkasos )i J_z:z:::~ as n is — its 

APPKARA3 IBS A5I MAS 

Agaii — The Lessors :z teaches ; especially 
:zz iz— >ifs n rEACH£S : :z:z: zz- Mah 

Whilr in svery land where the season of Az 
I iH ::._." ieveloped, it is :. season of melloif 
loveliness; yet | irhaps ming tc the peculiar ae- 



82 AUTUMN. 

tion of our climate on vegetation, there is no por- 
tion of the globe where it unfolds with greater gor- 
geousness than it does in our own country. He 
who has fully caught sympathy with the delicate 
beauty and solemn majesty of an American Autumn, 
will very likely experience a measure of disappoint- 
ment as he reads the Autumn of the poet Thomson. 
Granting that his are the flowing number of genius, 
still they do not meet the anticipations of him who 
has luxuriated in the bracing breezes, yellow woods, 
and dreamy hazes of Autumn, as it broods over the 
hills and valleys of the land of our love. The 
reason doubtless is, that child of nature as he was, 
and the true poet ever must be, the English Autumn 
which inspired his song, surely, cannot equal the 
fresh flush of the English Spring, of which he sings 
so sweetly as to rival the lay of the English lark, 
as he mounts from the meadow, filling all the air 
with the intoxicating influence of his rapturous 
strains. Just here, speaking of the pre-eminent 
charms of our Autumn, sweet memories are on 
me. 

One afternoon, I scaled my way on horseback to 
the very crest of the Allegheny Mountain, which, 



AUTUMN. 83 

with satellite ranges, sweeps so proudly through 
Pennsylvania and far to the South — the spinal col- 
umn to a large portion of the Continent. When 
there,. I departed from the traveled road aside into 
the heart of the green forest; wandered among 
trees, mosses, and feathery ferns. The breeze was 
abroad, but swept through the swaying branches, 
and over the bending ferns, with a muffled, memno- 
nian murmur. Then, there greeted me — the quav- 
ering, rattling; song of the locust with his bright, 
brown shield, and the ringing chirp of the field 
cricket, rose sadly from the rocking bushes. I knew 
there, on that solitary mountain height, far from 
the thronged haunts of men, though the woods were 
green, and skies soft, and the snowy tufts of the Life- 
ever-lasting were burdening the atmosphere with 
honeyed fragrance, that I was listening to the dirge 
of departing Summer ; that the heralds of Autumn 
were wailing around me. 

Again, a kind Providence permitted me once to 
career over the foaming breast of far-off Superior 
— beyond whose northern craggy shore thought tra- 
vels the storm-blasted plain which spreads away to- 
wards the frosty solitude of the Pole— towards the 



84 AUTUMN. 

region which gives responsive flashes to the straight 
glances of the Northern Star. I turned homeward 
in early August. But before I left the paradise of 
the swarthy Ojibway, the cricket was chirping, and 
solemn winds of Autumn were singing and sighing 
among the bushes which fringe Madeline Island. 
The winds and woods were giving sympathetic re- 
sponses to the mournful swashings of the waves. 
Afar out over the glassy fields of Big-Sea-Water, 
as the Ojibway styles the awe-inspiring floods of 
Superior, were strung and heavily-brooding, banks 
and curtains, and fantastic folds of gray and gloomy 
mists. The heavens were sombre ; the winds were 
cold ; and the murky rain clouds that trailed over 
the lake seemed as if weeping that the summer of 
the far North was so soon ended ! As the former 
reference illustrates the beginning of Autumn on 
land, so does the latter exhibit that beginning on 
water. It shows, too, that He whose kingdom ru- 
leth over all, oft-times in nature, as in conducting 
the destinies of man, inaugurates a new order of 
things with scowling cloud and bursting storm. 

The transition from late Summer to early Autumn 
is so gentle and gradual, that he who does not note, 



AUTUMN. 85 

with accurate eye. the minute pointings of the light 
hands which Nature moves around the dial plate of 
the year — who notes only the great hour marks, 
which here are months, will have the days of Au- 
tumn crleamine around him for some time before he 

is aware that Summer is zone. But. if the interla- 

t_ 

the two seasons is delicate and subtle, as 

time flits away, the most careless will become con- 

08 that another arc in the great cycle of seasons 

has been fully measured. September steals silently 

along its routine :f days, whose flight is marked 

:.fter tint revealing itself in forest foliage. 

babbling brooklets run low, and. with a hollow 

gargle, plunge down their serrated channels into 

quiet pools and eddies, flecked with foam. The sun 

BS the fiery glare of August, and, with chastened 

ravs. streams through the interstices of the forest, 

of spreading pines and laurel brakes, spotting all 

the ground with a fret-work of glowing gold. The 

wind assumes a tone more distinctly characteristic 

of the season. Sometimes, as the attendant of a 

driving shower, it rushes over nodding trees, until, 

after a long journey, it sweeps against the wall, and 

moans around the windows, and through the echoing 



86 AUTUMN. 

halls of ftorne, so strangely, tunefully sweet, that 
it seems an unearthly visitant. Even so, it seems as 
if the gusty grief of angel harps were sweeping 
down upon us from the far blue depths of the firma- 
ment. The little blue bird perches him by the way- 
side, and, as if soliloquizing, warbles out a song of 
sorrow, that the leaves are fading and the wild 
flowers dying. The gentle dove shelters herself in 
some forest solitude, and swells out her cooings, 
always sweet, with a double sweetness now. With 
her heaving heart she fills all the air with waves of 
mournful melody— it seeming as if the very soul of 
sadness were nestled in her purple-russet breast. 
And then, the bold hawk, cousin to the eagle, with 
his eye flinging glances of wavy light around him, 
and his wide wings spread, swoops up, droops down, 
rocks and wheels him around the spiral galleries of 
the air, which are reverberating his wild, screeching 
whistle. But October is on us now; if brown, yet 
beautiful. Go out into the forest in the morning. 
The fallen leaves are jeweled with dripping dews. 
The maple is robed with carnation, orange, and the 
emerald which lingers still; the hickory is crowned 
with gold ; the oak spreads abroad its boughs of 



Aunnor. ST 

dark russet, and the wild vine clambers among them 
all, and flaunts aronnd the mossy forest trunk its 
fesf his :: a-imson. But his:, when the wind is 
lulled, all the winding avenues ::' the woods resound 

>f the leaf as. its fibres haying 
strained away from the bough it has so long adorned, 
it clicks :- gainst its :■ jmpanions as it rocks and droops 
to the damp ground. And now, hark ! the brown 
pheasant wake3 the echoes of the far winding forest 
5, *~ith the thunder of his whirring wings in 
fligh " . . i the 7 roll out a drum beat upon the hollow 
log. '-"hen this ceases, the wood y chambers ring 
. d with the jay-bh Pa pensive screams. Having 
enjoyed all this s sene and its incidents, seek now 
some eminence, revealing the landscape which 
sprc ids around and away for full many a mile. 
Yonder are the bluff banks of some winding stream, 
which twists and tarns its ample channel round and 
round, like the coiled serpent, or like his trails in 
the dust of summer. Wherever it rolls, its :Iiffs 
are mantled with trees, whose summits melt into each 
other, and are now, with all the varying hues of 
decay, a fringe of beauty and honor. How elegant 
is the entire prospect ! Each woody iweD and each 



OS AUTUMN. 

range of careering hills arrayed with such rich and 
manifold hues, that it seems, to the quickened eye 
of fancy, as though billow after billow of glory were 
rolling over all the land. 

But Autumn is fraught not only with the beauti- 
ful, but also with the practically useful. This is 
the time of mature fruitage. See how the matted 
Amines on the trellis or the wall are burdened with 
clusters which, bathed with soft sunlight, glow in 
purple and gold. The well-ordered orchards are 
tinted and blushing with the crimsoned peach, and 
ruddy yellow apples; while the furrowed field, now 
that the rank weeds are withered and shrivelled, un- 
fold, through bursting husks, rows of yellow corn, 
whose deep soft color rivals the sunbeams. Nor is 
the wild wood destitute of its yield, under the un- 
heeded and untraceable culture of Him before whom 
all may bow and say, " The eyes of all wait upon 
thee ; and thou givest them their meat in due sea- 
son. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the 
desire of every living thing." The thickets on the 
hillsides are decked with flowing clusters of wild 
grapes, made soft and silvery gray by the keen 
night frost. The leafless branch of the walnut is 



AUTUMN. 89 

still rich and fragrant with yellow-rinded nuts ; 
and, like a swinging censer, perfumes the air. Near 
at hand, the earth is blackened with the decaying 
fruitage which has dropped around the butternut 
tree. And then, away out among mountain soli- 
tudes — solitary only as regards man, for they are 
echoing forever with voicings of God, which speak 
either to the ear or soul — the dome-like chestnut 
opens wide its velvet-lined burrs, and the passing 
gust, as it bows the branches, shakes out the rattl- 
ing, showering nuts, which glow upon the ground 
like the dark brown eyes of the vaulting deer. The 
skies of Autumn are very different from those of 
Spring or Summer. The Allwise Author of Nature, 
who moves through the universe under the law of 
harmonies, adapts the firmament, at this season, to 
the appearance of the earth ; the earth and sky 
heightening the effect of each other, and both to- 
gether unfolding an exquisite manifestation of tran- 
quil beauty and glory. The zenith has drooped 
from its Summer altitude, and its deep, delicate 
blue is mingled with grayish vapor. The lower 
ranges of the atmosphere are lined with fleecy 
clouds, which rim. the solemn woods, and whose 



90 AUTUMN. 

rents reveal interminable vistas of light blue that 
awaken a musing mood in the soul — a yearning after 
the unknown and eternal. The gorgeous colors of 
sunrise and sunset clouds are somewhat subdued. 
Two lines of Shakspeare paint the sunrise with ex- 
pression — 

" But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill/' 

At eventide, the sun sinks down in the west with 
vast belts of auburn and crimson spread around 
him as his drapery. The season is now drawing to 
its close. The forests are gradually disrobing them- 
selves, and their myriads of leafless twigs are at- 
tired with sullen brown. All the day long, dreamy 
hazes bank themselves deeply and densely on the 
hill sides, and brood lovingly over prairie and valley, 
burnished and crowned, as they bank and brood, 
with soft sunbeams. 

These are the days of Indian Summer, which has 
its sweet sunlight as well as its mellow mists. As 
the sun arises above the dark crests of the hills, 
like a thing instinct with life, symbolizing the resist- 
less might of the High and Holy One, who bids 



AUTUMN. 91 

him wheel through the blue courses of heaven, his 
rays, streaming forth in the onrushing fullness of 
ages, are tempered by the veils of haze, so that the 
eye can face the golden splendor. Struggling 
through volumed masses of mists, how sweetly glows 
that splendor ! It plays on the lawns through the 
partially bare and leafless branches of trees ; spots 
and variegates the blinds of the windows, and lingers 
lovingly on the floorways of home — soft and sweet 
as the deep glance of a mother's eye when it rests 
on her child, for whom she prays the benedictions 
of heaven ! 

Now and again the beautiful is exchanged for the 
black and gloomy. The blue haze yields to the 
murky clouds which hang thick, and trail through 
the heavens — like funeral banners. At night the 
rains dash more wildly, and the wind, as it rushes 
through the lone and sobbing woods, along the for- 
saken streets, through key-hole and crevice, and 
around the house corners, pours out a more impas- 
sioned and gusty grief than in September. Soon 
the mourning clouds will fling from their dark 
fringes the pure snow-flakes, which will sweep in 
flurries through the chilled air, or else gently float 



92 AUTUMN. 

to the leaf-mantled ground, " sifting and hissing" 
through the desolate boughs and lingering leaves. 
Some evening or morning, not many days hence, we 
shall see the landscape wrapped in a winding sheet 
of snow, while the hills will look down on us with a 
frosty frown. The winds will shriek and whistle 
through wood and field, with notes so fierce that 
the life current of trees and shrubs will shudder and 
shrivel back to the heart — rush down to their deep 
roots. We shall then know that another Autumn 
is gone, its days of variegated beauty are resolved 
into the shadowy past — that Winter will lift his icy 
sceptre over the land for stem and stormy months ! 

We have spoken of scenes in early Autumn. Let 
us now, before we pass to our second division of 
the theme, cast a farewell glance at the sombre ma- 
jesty of Autumn in its sad and shadowy, tearful tran- 
sition to Winter. One evening, of late November, 
night glooms coming on, while crossing a mountain 
ridge overlooking a wide expanse of rural loveliness 
— just as the solemn crest was passed, a storm broke 
forth in sullen fury. The vapors rolled together, and 
culminated at last in pitchy gloom, while a sweet star 
smiled from heaven over a rocky crag. The wind 



autumn 93 

whiffed fiercely through the summits of the lonely 

pines, and shrieked up the mount in i among 

the slust Jring Forest tnu fc Ld roared 

is; the windings ;: the huge 2 >rg 2 :: the left rfthe 

It as if the fr: nsmut- 

ing a i md mountain gorges intc shiver- 

ing and moaning org js for tl Uing rat 

: a mighty sorrow. As the mountain ssed 

and the plain was reached, while some rain Irops 
Qing like : 1 trickling from the >ver- 
cred and jobbing heart ::' night, the 3cene left 
behind was surpassindv sublime. The mountain 
I _- md waa robed with the blackness ■:: 
darkness: while, from the bosom : the far >ff 
doom, there rolled the storming winds and vexed 
voices >f the rocking and lesolate woods — overall, 
the weeping night heavens. It so>o:oias if the ele- 
ments were :::o. : ;:o.i^j ::_:o:hov and celebrating a 
great funeral grief. 

hat h:_h. huge ro:nn:a:n. arrayed in the aw- 
ful draj 0:7. an 1 rolling out the wil ". wails of nature's 
November sorrow — was a stupendous type. It 
5r}ii^ not raly the iiii^rliTy mourner ;: the lepart- 



94 AUTUMN. 

ing glories of the year — but as a high heaved and inky 
wave of the sea of oblivion, rolling up for the 
plunge, which should bury beneath its floods — the 
earth — with the sunlight, life, and glory — of mar- 
shaled ages ! 

We shall now, having seen that such and so beau- 
tiful, so majestically solemn, is Autumn, advert 
briefly to some of its lessons. And here, at the 
outset, we are reminded of some charming lines of 
our really American poet, Longfellow. They read 
thus : — 

" Oh, what a glory doth this world put on 
For him, who, with a ferYent heart, goes forth 
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
On duties well performed, and days well spent ! 
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves 
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings." 

None can doubt that Autumn types age, and 
points out to us what age ought to be — full of fruits 
unto holiness. He who looks at the stately tree 
with its foliage withered and tenderly tinged, if he 
will but think, cannot else than perceive how like it 
is to manhood, with the lustre of youth dimmed, 
the natural force abated. And as that tree, though 



AUTOIX. 95 

its leaves are faded, still charms the eye, and stands 
before him an object of interest, so he may learn 
that age is not necessarily repulsive. The age which 
crowns a well-ordered life is beautiful, like the days 
and trees of Autumn. There is a grace in its very 
tremors, a charm in its gray hairs, while the spirit- 
ually beautiful breathes all over the face, whose 
wearer has trodden for years in the pathway of 
righteousness. Precious, too, is the fruitage of 
virtuous age. None but the rude and reckless can 
turn aside from the life experiences of those com- 
pared with whom we are but as of yesterday. Ex- 
cellent, indeed, is the wisdom which is the concen- 
trated expression of the observations of a thoughtful 
lifetime. 

We love Autumn, with its sear and yellow leaves ; 
let us not forget to love the age of which it speaks 
so touchingly. When we roam abroad, and see the 
faded leaf, as it clings, with straining fibres, to the 
forest limb ; and tread over the leaves that are not 
only faded but fallen, and mouldering back to dust, 
how can we shun thoughts of death and the grave ? 
That desolating agent which has woven darkness 
around the yearnings and hopes of the young and 



96 AUTUMN. 

lovely ; which lias hushed the ringing voices of mil- 
lions of the merry in lasting silence; which has 
shrouded myriads of homes with gloom and grief ; 
which has severed the hearts that were lovingly 
linked to each other, as the leaf to the limb ; which 
has resolved whole generations of men into dust, 
and converted the home of all the living into the 
charnel house of the more thronged hosts of the 
dead ; — that gaunt desolator of hearts and homes 
will claim from us the tribute of awe, now that the 
types of his power are around us. But is there no 
type of triumph in the scene ? There is — there is ! 
Do you see that leaf which is drooping from its com- 
panions to the earth ? How delicately, with what 
wavy beauty it trembles, and rocks down to its 
dusty bed, the light air pulses its pall-bearers — per- 
forming their office of love with muffled whispers of 
sorrow. Oh, is there not something in this which 
speaks soothingly to the heart, assuring it how tran- 
quilly the righteous die ; heavenly music breaking 
in upon the departing soul ! 

Again, do we not stop short of the whole truth 
spoken by the painted hills of Autumn, when we 
regard them simply as the symbols of decay and 



AUTUMN. 97 

death? Does not a voice of prophecy and hope 
mingle itself with the utterances of sadness ? It is 
even so, if vre link the mottled grandeur of the far- 
sweeping foliage with the life that lingers at the 
forest roots. "For there is hope of a tree if it be 
cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender 
branches thereof may not cease. Though the root 
thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof 
die in the ground ; yet through the scent of 
water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a 
plant."' 

Just as the hidden life-current of the tree will 
rise up again, and robe the forest with greenness, so 
the mere act of death is but an evanescent eclipse of 
the soul — a transient palsying of its powers, from 
which it shall come forth, in Christ, to blaze in ever- 
lasting radiance; to unfold its energies forever. 
While, therefore, the roots tell of a coming life, the 
gorgeously hued leaves of Autumn, as well as the 
green ones of Spring, speak of the majesty, the 
teeming glories of that life. How strangely sweet- 
is the thought ! It is nothing short of this : — 
Grod twines a golden, many-colored tiara of triumph 
around the very brow of death ! 



98 AUTUMN. 

At this season of the year we will very naturally 
turn our thoughts back to the days of Spring and 
Summer, and contrast their greenness and flushed 
glories with the mellow splendors of decay which 
surround us. And thus, by the law of association, 
Autumn suggests to us tender memories of the ab- 
sent and the dead. Ah, if we look back to the 
spring time of our own lives, even though many 
years may not have passed over us, how have the 
loved and lovely faded and fallen, " like leaves in 
wintry weather !" 

How many forms and faces will start up and 
troop along before the quickened eye of memory ! Do 
you not, my hearers, see them thronging thick and 
fast before you now, arrayed in the habiliments of the 
grave, or clothed upon with the radiance of immor- 
tality? - Yearning love sighs, Where are they? 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, there is something more than the response 
which hollow echo mutters back to us — Where are 
they ? Even so, Faith breathes into the ear of the 
soul, They are tearless now, they have gained that 
eternal, sunny shore, 

" Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar." 



AUTUMN. 99 

Personal allusions, too frequently made in the 
sacred desk, are offensive to refined taste. Yet, 
surely there are times when, for good purposes, 
they are admissible, even desirable. ^Ye know 
that a truth in the concrete is of more power than 
in the abstract ; is more moving, more effectual to 
good, in actual embodiment, than in bare, blank 
statement. Will you not, therefore, indulge me — 
the memorials of the past breaking in upon us from 
hill and valley; earth and sky; and voicing them- 
selves in the very airs that, amidst the shadows of 
the night, are now murmuring over this roof and 
whispering around these hallowed walls, — will you 
not indulge me in tender allusions which — the names 
and incidental circumstances being changed — are 
but transcripts of your own living, loving hearts ? Do 
I think, then, of a friend departed, buried in the 
grave, indeed, but not buried from my heart, even by 
the banked mists of the years ! Thou, aged mes- 
senger of Jesus, friend of my youth, G — S — EL, 
art before me, thy clear voice rings in my ear. Well 
do I remember how, long, long ago, thy term of 
service ended, with the farewell utterances of the 
great-hearted Paul for the basis of thy thoughts— 



100 AUTUMN. 

"And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and 
to the word of his grace, which is able to build you 
up, and to give you an inheritance among all them 
which are sanctified," — how, with what impassioned 
power and tenderness, thou didst speak of the 
things of God — how thy forgiving heart didst write 
offences against thee, as in " sand upon the ocean 
shore, to be washed out by the first retiring 
wave." 

Can I ever forget how, again, in the far-past, near 
the "noon of night," with earnest eye, and voice 
tremulous with the burden of its awful messages, 
thou didst talk of passing time, rolling years, and 
all engulphing eternity, as, though, even then, thy 
soul were nestled under its penumbral haze — that 
thou couldst speak so solemnly ? Thy voice shall 
no more sound on the hills and in the valleys of the 
West — is hushed alike to rural groups and city 
throngs. Thy soul has gained its " long-sought 
home," thy body slumbers, in hope, on the bank of 
the river of the clear stream. The Allegheny rolls 
its waves by thy sepulchre, and through ages yet to 
come, shall brattle out thy requiem. And thou, E. 
H., long since hast thou learned and known the 



AUTUMN. 101 

answer to the question thou wast wont to breathe, 
as the wails of some sweet and distant harp, wast 
— 1 ^doi) lave us tl 

Do I think of a relative ? There is one counten- 
ance that floats before me, because of intervening 
years, dim and shadowy. ; / Oh thou 

of the benignant smile, the world knows thee not, 
but my heart throbs out thy name — Mother! Can 
I forget how. amidst the opening glories of luscious 
June, thou didst seal thine eyes to earth, and wing 
thee where it is June forever ! How, as thou went- 
est aloft, thou didst breathe blessings on a sorrow- 
smitten home, not fc sia sum- 
g .' Oh that He who heard thine expiring prayer 
— --Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'' — may guide 
even him and all thine, till we greet where who 

greet, meet for eternity ! And thou, dearest C , 

though thy gentle countenance glows not on the 
artist's canvass, it is hung securely in the weird 
halls of memory. I think of thee now ; how the 
yellow leaves of Autumn rustle on thy grave, and 
the morning dews sparkle there ! How thy soul, es- 
caped alike from the shadows of wavering faith, and 



102 AUTUMN. 

of the lone valley, gleams in the heaven of heavens, 
where thy Saviour's smile " scatters night away," 
even as the star which looks down on thy dust at 
eventide ! And yet once more I must think of thee, 

J , dear boy of the meek heart and auburn hair. 

Well do I remember howl clasped thee to my heart, 
as the shadows of death were gathering about thee, 
though I knew it not then, and talked of coining 
fellowship that might not be. 

Ever will I remember how, as we placed thee low 
in the earth, and the Autumn woods which looked 
down on thy grave, in sympathy with riven hearts, 
were thy mourners — how the smile of beauty lin- 
gered on thy brow — the storm and struggle over — 
as though some kind angel, waiting around thee, 
had traced it there — the pledge of coming glory, 
when God from on high should unseal thy dusty se- 
pulchre ! Dear boy, the hope of whose companion- 
ship here was blasted, loving trust plants thee now 
where the bursting, blushing rose of hope never 
withers ! Green be the myrtle that clasps lovingly 
around thy heart, that smiles on thy grave all the 
year — smiles of heaven ! 

There is one lesson of the season, that it may 



AUTUMN. 103 

not be amiss to notice, before we close this dis- 
course. Autumn teaches impressively that Gf-od 
loves the beautiful, as also the inexhaustible range 
of the beautiful. The proofs of this truth are all 
around us — the earth itself is a perpetual memorial 
of it. For, what is the earth but a stately palace 
of beauty ? Its foundations are of granite ; its 
walls, the high-heaved hills. Its spacious chambers 
and labyrinthian aisles are matted with emerald — 
floored with the flushed shells of the sea ; while its 
vaulted roof is woven of the mornino; light, tinned 
to azure, and festooned with burnished draperies, 
ivhose warp and woof are the fibres of the rainboiv ! 
Spring and Summer are manifestations of the 
materially beautiful, in their laughing waters 
— fresh fields — sunny skies — but they do not 
speak so impressively, paradoxical as, at first 
sight, it may seem, of the excellencies of the beau- 
tiful as does Autumn. Intrinsically, they may be 
regarded by many as excelling it in their forms of 
beauty, but, admitting this, their testimony of God's 
love of the beautiful, is not so strong and clear. 
The reason is this. They are the symbols of exuber- 
ant, rejoicing life, but Autumn is the symbol of decay 



104 AUTUMN. 

and death. When, then, I find even this foresha- 
dowing of dissolution so charming in its appearan- 
ces, how can I have stronger evidence of the love 
which my Maker bears to the beautiful and glori- 
ous ! I look at Spring in its bloom, and it thrills 
me. I look at Summer in its glowing splendors 
and mellow majesty, and it fascinates me ; but when 
I see Autumn, so sweet in its sadness, then I say, 
God loves the beautiful on land and on sea ; he loves 
it in earth and sky ; he loves it in life and death, 
through all the year; he loves it forever ! Aye, and 
if the manifestations of the beautiful are so various, 
even contrasts so marked as that of Spring and 
Autumn, invested with it, will not that God who 
crowns the year with his goodness, fills it with forms 
that exhilarate and soothe, — will he not ? Is he not 
able to fill all eternity with teeming developments 
of the lovely ! In this element of the ever-recur- 
ring, ever-varying displays of beauty, though differ- 
ing of course in mere accidents — phases of develop- 
ment — Earth is heaven in miniature ; time, the roll- 
ing year, is eternity in epitome ! 

The withered flowers, faded leaves, sombre skies, 
complaining brooks and murmuring winds — yea, all 



AUTUMN, 10 b 

the phenomena of Autumn, like so many gleaming 
organ tubes, roll up in the ear of the soul, as from 
unfathomed depths, a lofty, solemn, all-subduing 
swell of monition, that time is passing rapidly away, 
and eternity hastening on to a living presence with 
us all. Oh, let us, through his Good Spirit, live in 
unison with the will of the Most High God ! With 
the august glory of the judgment throne, and the 
overwhelming majesties of eternity in view, we say 
to each of you — Labor diligently to regulate heart 
and life by the power which breathes from the Cross 
of Jesus! Thus doing, thine end of earth shall 
be blessed, thy death peaceful ; thy destiny after 
death, beyond earth, shall be transcendently bles- 
sed, even through the u eternal years of God." 

" So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry slave, at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch 
About him; and lies down to pleasant dreams." 

Sweet shall he thy sleep in the grave, which is 



106 AUTUMN. 

watched from on high by the unsl umbering eye of 
Jesus ! As the successive Autumns of ages that 
shall roll by, till the time of thy quickening is come 
— as these shall sere and die, the winds that whisper 
and roar over thy mouldering form, will wildly, 
sweetly, chant an anthem of hope ; and the willows 
that, like silent mourners, may bend and weep their 
dewy tears over thee, will stream their yellow tres- 
ses in the breeze that : sighs thine elegy, with all 
the mournful beauty of nodding hearse plumes. We 
beseech you now, one and all ; we beseech you by 
the grandeurs of your deathless souls, that you for- 
get not that Autumn types two destinies. There 
is a sunset of tranquillity and beauty. It flushes 
the firmament with a ruddy glow. The sun sinks 
gently below the hills of the west, flinging around 
his blazing brow burnished vapors, which, wide- 
spread and glowing, flaunt in the heavens like crim- 
son and auburn banners, and tell of a sweet morrow. 
This illustrates and types the death and destiny of 
the good. Their end is peace ; they emerge from 
the shadows of death, into the light of a morrow 
which knows no eventide — they linger in a heritage 
whose skies smile with summer beauty — even always ! 



AUTUMN. 107 

There is a sunset of a far different character. 
The sun, with a fierce and brazen brow, droops 
down behind banks of black and scowling clouds, 
and thus ushers in a night of dashing rains and howl- 
ing winds. This illustrates and types the departure 
and the doom of the wicked. They die under the 
frown of Jehovah. They agonize and wail amidst 
the storms of that night which is moonless, starless, 
rayless, eternal ! A night it is whose swathing 
shadows are woven of the blackness of darkness— fit- 
ting drapery of absolute desolation — a night whose 
gloom shall shroud with horror, throughout aUthe eter- 
nity of the soul ! 

Take heed, therefore, how ye hear I 



SERMON 03 WINTER. 



WINTER. 



u He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth : his word 
runne: h rery si iflly. He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the 
ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels; who 
before his cold?"' — Ps&ui cxlvii. 15-1T. 

The one hundred and forty-seventh Psalm seems 

■ 

to have been composed soon after the return of the 

Jews from the captivity, i; when Jerusalem rose 

once more from the dost." In the text an appeal 

is mad? to the Omnipotence of God in nature, as a 

ground of confidence in the blessings which would 

hereafter flow forth upon his chosen people, from 

his tender care over them. He speaks ; his fiat is 

given as regards the evolutions of nature, and, his 

word runneth very swiftly — it is done ! How can 

111 



112 WINTER, 

his people else than cherish, unlimited confidence in 
him whose goodness and power are infinite ! In the 
illustration of power which the text contains, we 
have, also, an example of that wonderful sugges- 
tiveness and range of meaning which so pre-emi- 
nently characterize the Bible. The words of God 
in this hook are the shadows of himself ! Mark the 
outflows of Divine energy : 

" He giveth snow like wool ; 
He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes, 
He casteth forth his ice (hail) like morsels; 
Who can stand before his cold V 

Have we not here "nmltuni in parvo," volumes in 
sentences ? Who that reads and thinks will fail to 
receive a living impression of the exquisite beauty, 
the stormy majesty, and the chilly horror of Win- 
ter ! The mind that is active will find this text a 
glorious gateway to all the solitudes and sublimities 
of Frostland. Entering through this frost-plated 
gateway, one can wander at will along icy shores ; 
over white breasted moors; through snowy woods; 
and scale mountain peaks, the glittering thrones of 
tumults and tempests. Tracing the pathway of hu- 
manity, with nature sullen and desolate, and the 



WINTER. 113 

question, "Who can stand before his cold ?" for his 
guide, one who sympathizes with the lights and 
shadows, joys and sorrows of life, can thrill with 
the sweet and solemn devotions of God's sanctuar- 
ies ; the innocent pleasures of myriads of city and 
rural homes; or he may shudder at the compacted 
throngs of the wicked — effervescing cauldrons of in- 
iquity — or, he may shrink aside and w T eep over the 
sighs and shivering agonies of the forsaken and 
lonely, the widow and the orphan. Let us go forth 
then, my hearers, amidst the clustering solemnities 
and flashing splendors of Winter, for the double 
purpose of pleasure and profit: that we may admire 
and be instructed. 

One feature of Winter which floats before the 
mind at the very utterance of the word is : — Its sul- 
lenness and gloom. The fields have lost their ver- 
dure ; the flowers have withered and fallen ; and 
the trees have cast away their rich masses of 
leaves. The air is damp and cold through a large 
part of the season ; and the nights are long, often 
deep and black and misty. The sun, glancing ob- 
liquely on the earth, has lost much of his fiery 
strength. The clouds, therefore, lack lustre ; and 



114 WINTER. 

the golden fullness of light which crowns the Sum- 
mer has departed. The sky is, much of the time, 
dark and murky; revealing at eventide, instead of 
the manifold glories of Spring and Summer — - 
brazen sheets of vapour, or crimson bands which are 
unfurled along the angry clouds like fiery streamers. 
The earth itself around us, the very soil we tread 
beneath our feet, has exchanged its genial summer 
smile, and its elasticity to the step — for a frosty 
frown and the solidity of rock. The winds that, 
aforetime, were the fitting voices of the meadows 
and flowers, whispering their greetings to the Sum- 
mer leaves which trembled in ecstasy at utterances 
so full of pure tenderness, have now risen to a fran- 
tic shriek, or else moan and murmur through the 
lone night w T atches, like a lion in his forest lair 
muttering his mighty wrath, or growling out his 
sullen sorrow T when wounded and robbed of his prey. 
And yet this very sullenness of Winter is intimately 
linked with an ennobling influence. There is sublim- 
ity enthroned amidst the gloom. Sublimity may 
be felt as flowing out upon the soul from almost 
every department of nature. The forest spaces, 
with matted leaves crackling under the footsteps 



i 



WINTER. 115 

like waves crashing on a shore, are full of it. 
The trees lone and leafless, save here and there a 
tuft of ruddy brown leaves crisped and withered, 
fling down upon the ground all the day and night 
long, and through the long, long Winter, the shadow 
of a scowl — murky and majestic. While from the 
overhanging heavens there is flung down, alike, on 
forest and meadow ; on city and country, the 
shadow of a still grander gloom. The rivers roll 
and rattle along their ice-piled shores as through 
flinty palisades, filling their valleys with a frosty 
ring of power. The mountains tower up in bleak 
and bold relief, their brows turbaned with the dark 
and trailing mists of the storm. The ocean shore, 
always solemn and grand, is peculiarly so now, as, 
winding far, far away, it lifts against the rushing, 
smoke-crowned surges, its rampart of sand, cold 
and gray ; while, here and there, that rampart is 
fringed with storm-beaten, and storm-bent pines, 
which wail in the blast, yet, like heroes in the bat- 
tle shock, stand firm ; their green and rocking 
branches bannered with the foam-flecks which are 
flung from the thundering surfs. The wind of Win- 
ter, too, of which we have spoken as sullen, is ex- 



116 WINTER. 

ceedingly sublime in its rush on land and ocean. It 
sobs, shouts, and shrieks around our rattling, and, 
occasionally, quivering homes, so that we shrink and 
shudder ; and sometimes feel an involuntary heart- 
yearning for shelter and home in heaven. And, 
then, how grandly it marches along the tossing sum- 
mits of the forests ; wringing from the clashing 
boughs, as if smitten with spasms of wrath, an out- 
burst of majesty like that which it sweeps from the 
far reaching waves of mid-ocean — the deep toned 
and shivering chords, those waves, which fling off the 
mighty bass to the august diapason which is for- 
ever rolling out from the myriad-stringed harp of 
nature ! The whole framework of things around us, 
seems, at this season, to be keyed up to such a ten- 
sion, that, as in the bursting, sounding, snapping 
bark of the forests ; and the roadways creaking and 
screeching under the roll and rush of hoofs and 
wheels, it seems ready to crack again — seems in- 
stinct with power — exuberant in strength. And 
who has failed to be smitten, some time or other, with 
earnest admiration of the glittering glory of the can- 
opy which Winter night occasionally weaves around 
him ! Oh ! who has not felt sometimes the majesty 



WINTER. 117 

of the stars marshaling themselves in the spaces of 
heaven like the hosts of God; twinkling and glint- 
ing down upon him through the frosty air — as if the 
stellar universe were holding jubilee before the Om- 
nipotent One who bids them burn as the symbols 
of his goodness and eternity ! Withal, the snow- 
mantled earth, glowing under the light of the moon, 
emitting the myriad corruscations of snow crystals 
— life palsied at the surface — unfolds itself, in soli- 
tary places, with a mysterious, ghastly, ghostly 
gleam. We know that we are on the earth at such 
times and places, yet we feel an unearthly influ- 
ence streaming into our souls. We think, at such 
times and places, of grave clothes ; of the icy sleep 
of death ; while the purged eye of faith, alone, can 
rejoice in the Spring time and the sunlight which 
are far, forever beyond. This, alone, can pierce 
through the frosty paralysis of earth and death, 
unto the grand quickenings of the land of everlast- 
ing life ! It is, however, a sickly and distorted 
view which regards Winter as altos;ether filled with 
glooms and tempests — with things grand and som- 
bre. This season, as well as those which precede 
it, has its elements of beauty. Looking at these, 



118 WINTER. 

we cannot fail to receive an impression of the Su- 
preme Creator as infinite Light and Love. We 
cry out of our full hearts, Thou crownest the year 
with beauty, as well as with goodness and plenty ! 
There is not a lovelier display in nature, except 
that of the rainbow, of beauty born out of dark- 
ness, than is given us in some free and tranquil 
snow showers. The air is still and shadowy; and 
the thick, deep, black clouds roll out, sweep over and 
around us, until the earth is roofed with a firma- 
ment of ebony. Solemnly the dark vapors bend 
and trail over the brown woods and the sloping sides 
of the hills. How sweetly now the soft white flakes 
drift out from the inky heart of the rolled mists ! 
They sail and rock around, and droop gently down, 
through the yielding air, thick, and pure, and beau- 
tiful, as though the heavens were filled with the 
feathery down torn from the nodding plumes of 
rushing angel hosts. Beautiful are these snow flakes 
in their flight and in their fall ! Those falling hail 
those already fallen with a delicate dash and rustle, 
like the suppressed whisper of affection which, while 
it hesitates an utterance, is yet tender and true. 
Beautiful in rigid fact, as well as in the eye of all- 



WINTER. 119 

tinging fancy, are these showers of snow ; for science 
proves them to be showers of frost flowers, whiter 
than the faces of the lilies, the flakes having all the 
delicacy of structure and shape which characterize 
the flushed petals of the garden. 6 Wonderful, 
Lord, are thy works ! When the earth is mantled 
with snow which protects the springing grain as 
with a garment of refined wool, then the northern blast 
arises in its strength, and pipes fiercely, with a 
power extorting the question, " Who can stand be- 
fore his cold?" As it roars around, it works all 
manner of lovely forms with the pure element in 
its moulding grasp. Here it is furrowed, there it 
is ridged, and yonder it is irregularly banked, stop- 
ping up the highways. The sharp flurries of the 
blast build aloft columns of fine snow crystals, rich 
as though composed of diamond dust ; and glowing 
with rainbow brilliance and variety of color. Then 
it crests the ridges with streamers as beautiful as the 
banner of spray which floats from the crown of the 
sea-surge. The freshly fallen and virgin snow itself, 
as it rests on roofs; on the fields and valleys; on 
the mountain side ; and on the branches of trees, 
what can exceed its beauty ! Look at it steadily. 



120 WINTER. 

It is very white, " so as no fuller on earth can 
■white it." It is porous, spongy, thrills you with its 
look of foam, pure and white as any that ever boiled 
on the comb of the wave. The ridged and far- 
sweeping prairie, under its influence, swells away 
like the billowy breast of a mighty alabaster sea. 
When God scatters the hoarfrost like ashes, its pol- 
ishing, transmuting power is wonderful. The win- 
dow plates seem as if adorned with the glittering 
granulations of the opal. The dark, unsightly fen- 
ces of the farms are changed into far-stretching 
lattice-work whose bars are of solid silver ; and the 
meadow brook turns it round and round until the 
beholder is filled with joy in tracing its white and 
frosty coils. It is out amidst the solitudes of Na- 
ture where the beauty of Winter is fully revealed, 
and with a richness which cannot even be imagined 
by one who has never actually witnessed, upon a 
wide field of observation, the marvelous creations 
of snow, and frost,, and ice. Never shall I forget 
the glorious scene unfolded to my eyes on a "Winter 
day while winding up the woody side of one of the 
Allegheny Mountains. The snow was deep, fresh, 
and sprinkled over with frost, so ravishingly white, 



WIN'EEE. 121 

so delicately pure, that it seemed as if bars of morn- 
ing light had been solidified, congealed, and then — 
had crumbled into dust. The snow, thus de- 
corated, had mantled everything within the imme- 
diate range of vision. Down the long slope of the 
mountain side ; down the steep walls of the ravine 
which furrowed the high, rock-built ridge ; around 
the spurs and up the cliffs it swept, revealing them 
as cones and crags of fanned frost. It wrapped the 
roots, girdled the trunks, and climbed out through all 
the wilderness of forest branches and twigs ; wound 
itself round and round the coils of the wild vines — un- 
til the mountain seemed arrayed in trees of living 
white, instead of trees of living green. A boundless 
wildwoocl careered away before the eye, decked with 
fairy festoons, and inexpressibly rich and fanciful 
wicker-work, woven of frost rods, instead of the 
yellow twigs of the willow. Capping the mountain 
was a clump of sullen pines whose wide-spread 
branches, and tufted, feathery spires, covered with 
snow, waved in the air with a triumphal beauty, 
like the white plumes of the ostrich when in her 
flight, u she scorneth the horse and his rider." Over 
all this loveliness of earth there was brooding a sky 



122 WINTER. 

of darkness, relieved of its gloom and transformed 
into a harmonious crown of the scene, by showering 
snow flakes. There are times, also, when the copi- 
ous sleets of Winter, freezing as they fall, incrust 
entire forests with ice plates and icicles, which droop 
from innumerable branches with the gracefulness of 
pendants upon massive chandeliers. The latter, bor- 
rowing lustre from glowing gas gets, fling prismatic 
gleams through carved domes, and around the gor- 
geous walls which enclose throngs of men, with high 
beating hearts and wondering eves. The former, 
borrowing their lustre from the sun, traveling abroad 
in his strength, fling prismatic gleams against the 
granite walls of the earth, and up towards that 
grander dome built by God himself, and which roofs 
the world. The soul is stirred to its depths at the 
sight, and, pouring all its fullness into the eye, rests 
there, as upon a throne of light, admiring the handy- 
work, and adoring the majesty, of Him who is 
worthily styled, the God, the Father of Glory. 
Earth has but few of her many bright and beauti- 
ful things, which are comparable with the fretted 
splendor of ice upon interminable mountain forests. 
In gazing upon such a spectacle, it seems as if some 



WINTER. 123 

vast, far stretching, branching, and tree-like coral 
reef had been hurled aloft from the abysses of the 
ocean — and frozen into everlasting crystal ! 

Passing to the lessons which may be received 
from Winter, we observe that, It is the symbol of 
sorrow, calamity, death. The blasting of trees and 
flowers, so far as the eye is concerned, the hollow, 
desolate wailing of its winds, and the many other 
elements of gloom which so often characterize its 
landscapes, will lead the mind, instinctively, to 
regard it as the exponent, in the natural world, of 
the sombre and sad in the events which befall our 
humanity. How natural it is to think of death 
among men ; the wrecking of sweet home circles ; 
the bodies of the loved and honored crumbling in 
the grave, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to 
dust," when all around us are the grasses and leaves 
dissolving beneath our feet, or flying into dust upon 
the icy wind ! If we are thoughtful at all of the 
phenomena of nature, the close of life, the sealing 
of our bodies in the silence of the grave will, some- 
times in Winter, be almost thrust upon us. How 
can it be otherwise when, at eventide, the sky which 
broods over the great city is sullen and shadowy, 



WINTER. 



and, as if a deep, silent, and overflowing sorrow 
were penetrating and filling all the air, chilly drops 
are trickling slowly from the dark and misty folds 
of the firmament ? The drops fall with a mournful 
dash against the window plates, and curve and 
stream over them, writing wrinkles on their clear 
faces, crystal on crystal ; as if tracing mysterious, 
funeral hieroglyphics. The long lines of street 
lights glare wildly into the overhanging darkness, 
w T hile the streets themselves, emptied of their bril- 
liant throngs of men ; with here and there a hurry- 
ing traveler, the rattle of whose footsteps mingles 
with the deep, sad bell notes which toll out the 
hours — tell us of the time when the active and strong 
shall have left the highways of life. The dreariness 
of the grave is heightened to our thoughts, if, in ad- 
dition to the shadows ; the pattering drops ; 
the loneliness of the streets, the night wind should 
roar down the chimneys ; rattle the windows, and 
shake the strong walls of our homes, while on its 
wings the husky bell notes float and frantically 
shriek, like a prisoned spirit struggling for utterance. 
The beautiful things of Winter, also, sometimes 
teach men the end of earth. When the ice incrus- 



WINTER. 



12; 



tations crumble and crackle from the swinging limbs 
of the trees, and breaking as they fall, strew the 
ground with glittering fragments, which " rattle like 
a shore with pebbles," have we not a touching mem- 
orial — how relentlessly death dashes the great 
and brilliant of the earth from their high places, 
and fills the grave with beautiful ruins ? 

Yet, after all that may be said about the symbols 
of death, nature, interpreted by revelation, abounds 
with illustrations of death yielding to life ; of death 
swallowed up in victory. Yf inter has wrapped 
up in its icy heart the secret of a triumphal 
resurrection. Go abroad, when the landscape 
is dismal and desolate to the eye, and death 
seems to reign supreme. Even then, the ban- 
ner of victory is waving aloft in the wind. Look 
up, now, at the peach and apple rods of the orchards. 
See the buds scattered along their sides like dark 
and unsightly knots, upon which are han^ino- bi^ 
and frosty drops, which cause the beholder to shrink 
back and shiver, so cheerless is the sight. Yet, bur- 
ied in those rough and ugly knots, which seem like 
fretting tumors swelling along the bright and pol- 
ished bark, there is a beauty which will rival the 



126 WINTER. 

rainbow. There is concealed there a radiant bloom 
which will break forth in the Spring time and fill 
all the land with beauty and gladness. Even so, 
faith sees glory slumbering amidst the dishonors of 
the grave. Even so, out from the rocky ribs ; out 
from the sand and gravel ; the chilly damp, and 
reeking mould, and crumbling dust of grave plots, 
there will surely spring a majestic and lovely life, 
which will fill heaven and eternity with victorious 
and grateful song, " unto Him that loved us, and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood ; unto Him 
that liveth and was dead, but behold he is alive for- 
ever more, Amen ; and hath the keys of hell and 
of death." White?* should teach as to cherish yearn- 
ings of soul after rest and home in heaven. Its 
sternness and storms, its moaning tempests, seem to 
be in sympathy with human allotment on earth. Its 
roaring and sobbing storm voices seem to be for- 

© © 

ever repeating the story of human sorrow ; to be 

forever bewailing the havoc wrought in the social and 
© © 

moral earth through transgression of the Divine 
© © 

law. As we sit, pensively, and listen to the solemn 
wail of the night wind, earth's historic ages appear 
to pass before us. Stately retinues move along 



wixter. 127 

with tearful eyes andgriefiul countenances ; and the 

whole earth reverberates with the cries of bereave- 
ment, the sighs of disappointment, the shouts and 
groans of battle. Life is unfolded to us in the 
hoarse blustering storm wind of Winter as a period 
of vehement struggle with tribulation ; as a period 
of giant effort against evil, so that one having put 
on the whole armor of righteousness, shall with diffi- 
culty stand in the evil day. When, therefore, there 
are multitudes of family groups, in city and country. 
whose members are sheltered from the shock of the 
tempest, and are enjoying all the sweet charities of 
home : may we not readily transfer our thoughts 
and aspirations to that home on high, which having 
found, the weary of life's conflicts are altogether 
satisfied with its repose and shelter; and rejoice in 
the assurance of Divine benignity that they shall 
go out no more forever ! We have said that Winter 
is the symbol of sorrow. We would now add. that 
there are times when it teaches forcibly the tender 
majesty of human sorrow. There are times in 
Winter, the air being somewhat moist, and the frost 
not exceedingly severe, when the night wind swells 
out full and high, and vet there is a softness and 



128 WINTER. 

sadness in its tones which, make them like the out- 
bursts of some great organ, when its pipes are shiv- 
ering with the sobbing gusts and mighty murmurs 
of a passionate funeral grief. Oh ! is there not 
something, in the mournful sw^ell of this wind, which 
syllables, to the sensitive ear and heart, the sorrow 
of many a human soul swelling out with an unutter- 
able fullness ; a sorrow which, to the consciousness 
of its subjects, pervades the universe; voices itself 
in all mighty sounds ; fills all space with its presence, 
and darkens the whole temple of life with its shad- 
ows ? Was there not a sorrow like this in the soul 
of Jacob when he " rent his clothes, and put sack- 
cloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many 
days ? And all his sons and all his daughters rose 
up to comfort him ; but he refused to be comforted; 
and he said : For I will go down into the grave un- 
to my son mourning. Thus his father wept for 
him." Did not David sorrow thus when he "was 
much moved, and went up to the chamber over 
the gate, and wept ? And as he went, thus he said : 
my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! 
would God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, 
my son !" Does not many a mother's heart swell out, 



WINTER. 129 

almost to bursting, with a grief which voices itself 
in the grand moans of the Winter night wind, when 
her soul is bereaved and she fulfills, substantially, 
"that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, 
saying : A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, 
and bitter weeping ; Rachel weeping for her child- 
ren, refused to be comforted for her children, be- 
cause they are not?" Winter illustrates the inde- 
structibility of truth. " Veritas est magna, et prevale- 
nt." " Truth is mighty, and will prevail," is a 
saying which has its utterances all through nature 
and historic life. It can no more be suppressed 
forever than volcanic fires be buried perpetually be- 
neath the earth's crust. These fires will not remain 
in confinement ; they will surge, though the gran- 
ite walls of the Globe be shaken with spasms. 
Winter teaches us, not the development of truth 
in tumult and revolution, but how powerless are tu- 
mults and storms to crush out its life ! It teaches 
how surely, sooner or later, noble truth will spring 
as the green blade from the ground, will smile as 
the flower, will bless as the golden clusters of the vin- 
tage. The trees may be leafless and brown ; the 

grass may be withered and dry; the flowers and 
9 



130 WINTER. 

their stalks may crumble together ; but there is life 
at the roots of the trees, the seeds of grasses and 
flowers, enfolding the life germs, have fallen to the 
earth amidst the wrecks of past glory. Tempests 
may roar ; frosts bind the earth with glassy fetters ; 
clouds may gloom, and snows may fall. But there 
is an energy which defies the rush and the roar of 
the elements, in the precious seed which the hus- 
bandman has committed to the earth. It draws the 
sweet influences of life from the snow that seems to 
wrap it, in its white folds, as a shroud, and thus 
seal it in the embrace of death. Does not truth 
show like vitality under pressure, and amidst com- 
motion and opposition ? Let a great scientific truth 
be once enunciated, and though principalities and 
powers, superstition and ignorance, combine to bury 
it, it will flash out before men as lightning leaps 
from the cloud ; it converts the whole earth into a 
whispering gallery, swelling a whisper into a loud 
voice, like thunder amidst the cedars of Lebanon ; 
while nations become auditors of the indignant ut- 
terance of Galileo, " It does move for all that." So, 
let a man, in the department of Literature, produce, 
as the fruitage of his brain toil, a work that glows 



WINTER. 131 

with rich and beautiful thoughts, that has real merit 
in it ; that has upon it the stamp of individuality, 
of a soul that looks at the universe out of its own 
eves, and it will live. It may be scoffed at by some ; 
it may be treated with severe neglect by others ; it 
may be, apparently, unnoticed by the world ; it 
may be, in a little while, forgotten ; yet power shall 
have gone forth from it into some minds, that will 
transmit its influence to future times. Thus the 
noble creations of a man's intellect and heart will 
live, though he himself be unknown ; just as the 
sunbeams of evening, when the sun is below the ho- 
rizon, tinge the firmament with a billowy beauty 
which rolls away off to the far East — even to the 
gates of the morning. Thus his thoughts and 
phrases, though dissevered from their original asso- 
ciations, will travel down the solemnly sweeping tide 
of centuries, just as gold dust, torn from the rock 
veins, will be scattered in the channels and along the 
winding shores of the rivers. From the gates of 
Paradise to the present time, religious truth has been 
militant. The warrings against it reached such a 
virulence, that, at one time, it seemed almost banished 
from the earth. Then God came forth in its defence, 



132 WINTER,. 

and, after the desolations of the deluge, it com- 
menced afresh its struggles with the powers of apos- 
tasy. With varying fortunes it reached the fullness 
of time, when the Son of God, by his teaching, lofty 
life, and atoning death, secured and sealed everlast- 
ing righteousness for, and unto, all them that be- 
lieve in his name. Then was hell stirred to its low- 
est depths, and earth roused with all its malice and 
enginery of opposition. The heathen raged, the 
people imagined the vain thing of crushing Omni- 
potence ; " The kings of the earth set themselves, 
and the rulers took counsel together, saying : Let 
us break their bands asunder, and cast away their 
cords from us." God held them in derision. Whilst 
the foes of his truth vanished like foam flecks tossed 
from the wave, the truth itself rolled on in majesty 
like the sea. The hour when the envenomed foes 
of God thought they had crushed truth into the 
dust, crushed it down to the ground in the blood of 
its living embodiment, was the hour of their defeat ; 
was the hour when its perpetual triumph was made 
sure, and sealed, in the presence of heaven and earth, 
men and angels, by the precious blood of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. His dry and horrid cross, moistened 



WIOTKEL 133 

only with his ovrn clammy sw : : I m ] : : rang bl : : L 
like Am I that " ". r i-^rlit forth buds, : 

bloomed blc 3Soms, andyi Imonds," inanight; 

i the hour ::' his leath, bloomed heart 
nifi for the weary in life's lesert way. ; 
yielded freely clustering fruits for the hungry in 
spiri: — fruits :: which nations m: ke. and 

I refreshmen: and rest :: their aching souls. 
Aye, verily, that trass, symbol and seal of the truth 
which is un:: salvation, is i sublimer fulfiUment :f 
the springing itspi . : ling of a massive Orien- 

tal vine than that furnished by Israel in the glorious 
1 lys : t Davi 1 an 1 S : I >mon« Of the nation thus 
pr ;spering. there could be sung the noble strain c :- 
earring in the eightieth Psalm: 

-..:.. "..: :. rlze : .:: :■£ Egypt : 
Thou hast east : at the heathen and planted ::. 
Zi::\ ";:r~: ire is: :: :m c=::re ::,. 
And . ■: it :: tahe leep root, 

And it filled the land. 
Z'zz i:'..s -e:e :•: rereil ^::b. the shadow :: ::. 

:ie ': :u^ie :lere:: vrere like the :edara :: G:i, 
~_t Bent rat _t: boughs auto the sea, 
And her branches nntc the river. Bnphrates. 



134 WINTER. 

But of this cross what shall we say ? It is the 
vine of salvation which has taken deep root, and 
will fill, not merely the land of promise and holy 
song, but the whole earth. It has, spiritually 
speaking, shot its winding roots through the crevi- 
ces of the earth's ribs of eternal rock ; struck them 
down, down, until they have, like fibres of refined 
steel, twisted them round and round the earth's 
fiery core. It has, spiritually, sent out the boughs 
thereof like the cedars of God. Its branches will 
spread out until all the hills and seas of the whole 
earth shall be covered with the shadow of it. After 
the scorching footsteps of ages ; after centuries of 
feeding on the grapes of Sodom, — sweet will it be 
for way-weary and heart-sickened humanity to rest 
in that shadow. Sweet and luscious will be the 
earth-mantling fruitage of that time. Fresh and 
cool, indeed, will be the shadow flung down upon 
the holy and happy nations of the long troubled 
but now peaceful earth. 

Fresh and cool, thrice so, will be the shadow which 
is flung, upon the hot and beaded brow, from the 
trellised roof now woven, over the land and the sea, 
by the vining cross ; a vine not nurtured by the 



WINTER. 135 

glassy dews which trickle from the eyelids of the 
morning, but by the precious blood which streams 
from the heart of Jesus ! 

The militant truth of God, which we have said 
commenced its conflicts at the gates of Paradise on 
Earth, will never cease its conquests, until it is 
crowned, amidst the jubilance of the Universe, for- 
ever triumphant, within the gates of Heaven. It is 
instinct with an irrepressible life, like the seed of 
the husbandman ; a life which will spring and flour- 
ish in defiance of storms and frosts — and yield a 
harvest of eternal glory to God, and of eternal 
gladness to multiplied millions of saved men. 

"Winter, being a period of preparation for fresh 
outgoings of life, symbolizes a grand truth in the 
social universe — Cycles of destiny completed, new evo- 
lutions will commence. 

The law of existence seems to be, variety, grow- 
ing out of uniformity. A tree, with its many 
branches springing out from the one trunk, types 
universal life. An individual man, or generation 
of men, passes through a succession of joys, sor- 
rows, hopes, fears,— elemental acts of consciousness. 
The same elemental acts are repeated by the man 



186 WINTER. 

or generation following, and yet, with myriads of 
differences in the manner of their development. 
Thus, while each man, each generation, is essentially 
like the preceding man or generation, still the life 
cycle of every man or generation is a novelty, as 
compared with what went before. So it is with the 
life circuit of nations, a circuit often enclosing cen- 
turies in its sweep. Doubtless, in heaven itself, 
the same law of variety, in uniformity, will continue 
to hold sway. The eternity of the redeemed, 
heavenly universe, will not be a monotony. Whilst 
there will be righteousness and joy forever, there 
will be, like year giving place to year, cycle on 
cycle of providence, each differing from the other, 
crowding eternity with fresh stimulants to praise 
and song. Winter, then, as the period in which 
nature prepares for a new series of unfoldings, may 
well fill the thoughtful soul with noble anticipations 
of those thrilling events, which will spring through- 
out eternity, with a beauty and blessing like the 
rustling blades of the harvest fields. Eternity, 
with its subordinate cycles, becomes, thus, ele- 
gantly symbolized by one of the great wheels which 
Ezekiel saw by the river of Chebar, wdieels whose 



WINTER. 137 

" work was like unto the colour of a beryl ; and 
their appearance and their work was as it were a 
wheel in the middle of a wheel. As for the rings 
they were so high that they were dreadful; and 
their rings were full of eyes round about them 
four." Even so, the cycle of eternity, with every 
subordinate wheel of duration, is rimmed round 
and round with the living glances of the Infinite 
One, all whose ways are wisdom and truth. My 
hearers, let us be wise touching our personal 
destiny. The years of earthly life are times of 
long suffering and mercy to us ward, given us that, 
by diligence in well-doing ; by unfeigned faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ, we may shun the agony of 
the lost, and gain the happy cycles of the 
saved. I beseech you by the mercies of God 
in Christ Jesus, that you forget not, but rather 
that you cherish, with a reverent heed, this un- 
utterably solemn fact — The chariot wheels of the 
years are rolling us all, rapidly, towards an eternity 
of glory or of gloom I 



SERMON ON THE CRUCIFIXION. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 



" But we preach Christ crucified." — 1 Cor. i. 23. 
u And it was the third hour ; and they crucified him." — Mark 
X7. 2d. 

Spkixg- burst forth in greenness and beauty ; sum- 
mer unfolded its ripened glories ; autumn flung its 
sweet and varied drapery over the land ; and winter 
closed up the cycle of changes, with its glooms and 
sweeping storms. The process was repeated once 
and still once more, and yet again and again the 
vear rolls its rich and rushing round, till now. lo ! 
fifty is the number measuring the career of Wash- 
ington College : and, in memorial of mercies of the 
Highest, the friends of the institution enter into his 
gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with 

praise. Along with the usual exercises of the An- 

141 



142 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

nual Literary Festival, it has been thought appro- 
priate to rally the sons of the College from afar — 
to review the kind dealings of Providence in its 
behalf — to twine a wreath of "funeral flowers" 
around the memory of departed Alumni, — and to in- 
augurate the whole series of services with voicings 
of the Sanctuary. For this purpose, w T hat can be 
more fitting than the theme suggested by the holy 
words just read in your hearing — the Cross of Jesus 
Christ being the Sun of Revelation, all whose other 
parts are arching round this brilliant centre as a 
crown of stars ? Could we interrogate the dead of 
the Alumni, and those good, great men once guiding 
the destinies of this College, but who are now in 
Paradise, no theme dearer to them could be selected 
than that by which we propose to hallow this time 
of Jubilee. We shall invite attention to a great 
Biblical fact — shedding honeyed fragrance around 
the graves of our dear and cherished dead ; and 
streaming along their immortal pathway a glory 
which eclipses the sun in his strength. Our 
theme is — The Crucifixion of Christ — with an im- 
provement in sympathy with the occasion calling us 
together. In musing on our topic, we are not for- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 143 

getful of the fact, that ardent minds are prone to 

exa_ )n, to invest themes of a secondary na- 

ture with primal importance. Still, it shou] 

tnctly t >rae in mind, that there is a real differ- 
ence in the value of the various events transpiring 
in the Universe. There are crises in the history of 
individuals and nations, when, if one will mark well 
the Unkings of things, the present with its ante- 

Qtfi and consequents — will seize sympathy with 
the events challenging attention and interest, — the 
heart will ache almost to bursting. Can there, then, 
within the limits of sane discourse, be too much im- 
portance attributed to the crucifixion of our Lord 
us Christ: That au .- ■ * ' light 

' t with thi 

light of two t -.' Before the foundations of the 

earth were laid, or the battlements of the world 
were reared, the thoughts of the triune Jehovah 
were riveted, with an interest that Divinity alone 

realize, upon the cross of Jesus. "Whilst as 
long as the immortality of a saved man endures. 
with gushings of glory in his soul — his grateful, 
thankful memories will twine around the cross of 
Jesus as the quickening germ, the mighty see:: 



144 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

of eternal life. As the essence of the crucifixion 
is in the atoning agony of Christ, we shall notice 
not merely his hanging on the cross, but incidents 
and anguish connected therewith, — it having been 
beautifully remarked that, " the tragedy of his 
death commenced in the garden and ended on the 
cross." 

We shall also assume, on Biblical basis, some po- 
sitions which it is requisite to keep vividly before the 
mind, if we would feel deeply, would have moving 
before us, in solemn actuality, the phases of the scene 
attracting our attention. 

We take it, then, as a fixed fact, that Jesus 
Christ was invested with the attributes of essential 
Divinity, that he was very and eternal God mani- 
fested in the flesh. He it was that willed, and the 
worlds were — whose fiat built the universe upon the 
bosom of darkness. Moreover, we assume his gen- 
uine humanity, all sin excepted. Being the second 
Adam, the representative of the race, we look at 
him as the model of humanity. In placing him be- 
fore us, therefore, we are entitled to robe him with 
such symmetry and delicacy of frame, such grace 
and grandeur of physical outline, as proclaim him 



THE CEUCiriXI'JX. 145 

[together lovely." Intellectually, we are to con- 
ceive of him as endowed with a mind of lightning 
sti 3ngth, a mind wirh such vast energy that, as the 
electric fluid, in the night storm, strikes light ::.: 

of the heart of darkness, so his great soul could 
pour floods of light on domair,- : : th : light, : vex w 
profound darkness had previously brooded. His 
was an intellect in comparison with which our Lockes, 
Newtons, Homers, Mil;;::-. Shakespeares, and no- 
t minds, that in successive ages have claimed 
the worl niration, sink into positive dwarfisk- 

ness. His emotional nature, too. evinced all that was 
lofry and lovely. A courage and fortitude of soul 
inhered in him. such as never characterized earthly 
warrior or hero, in any department of human ac- 
tion. Also, he was meek and gentle, all the finer 
and milder lineaments of our nature, were his in 
sunny beauty. — lis were sympathies and suscepti- 
bilities of the verv delicacv of lines of light. 
VTithal. his whole nature was swathed and draped 
in the pure beauties of holiness. Mark him well; 
such an exalted style of humanity as he presented, 
never before or since moved and acted upon this 

d sarth! Again, we assume that Christ lied 
10 



146 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

as the propitiation for our sins, that he was deli- 
vered for our offences, and was raised up again for 
our justification. Through his death men have life, 
his agony is the ground of all true bliss. Suffer- 
ing, then, in our stead, his dying sorrows are in- 
vested with unutterable tenderness. Behold, now, 
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of 
the world ! 

I. We say then, First, The crucifixion scene was 
marked by vile treachery. 

We allude to the inglorious conduct of Judas Is- 
cariot. Looking at the circumstances of the case, 
there is a superlative enormity in his crime. He 
had listened often to words distilling from the lips 
of Jesus, of such compass and unearthly unction as 
to merit the declaration, " Never man spake like 
this man." He had witnessed the Eedeemer scat- 
tering such blessings in his pathway as awakened 
hallelujah anthems from the blind, halt, maimed, 
and all the sons and daughters of sorrow that 
thronged around his ministry ; had marked him for 
a series of years moving on land and on water, by 
night and by day, with the majesty of Divinity. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 147 

His career too, as noticed by his apostate disciple, 
was crowned through its every stage by absolute 
perfection of spirit and moral action; and, like 
ointment poured forth and breathing its thrilling 
odor all around, was the memory to those who would 
cherish it, of the true and tender friendship illus- 
trated in the life of Jesus. Well might the sensi- 
tive soul of the Savior shrink back in anguished 
aversion from treachery so black and appalling. 
Well might such treachery draw from even him — 
the pure and meek-hearted — those words of reproof 
which will forever roll through the soul of Judas 
like the burden of a judgment curse — will burn 
into the depths of his being deathless remorse — 
"Judas, betrayest tJwu — thou who knowest my 
spirit and manner of life, thou upon whom I have 
lavished such love — betrayest thou the Son of man, 
whom thou oughtest to know is the Son of God 
likewise — betrayest thou him, and hast thou the au- 
dacity and depravation of heart to seal that betrayal 
with the signal of friendship — Judas, betrayest thou 
the Son of man, with a fe'ss?" Let the false-heart- 
edness of Judas Iscariot be lifted aloft — generation 
after generation, to the end of the world — a pillar 



148 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

of salt — that men may gaze on it, and reel back 
from the spirit of treachery. Worthily is the name 
of Juclas Iscariot the badge of all infamy ! 

II. Secondly, The crucifixion scene was marked 
bg glaring injustice. 

There were two leading charges urged against 
Jesus while on trial for his life. The first was that 
of blasphemy, and the second was that of treason. 
The charge of blasphemy was pressed on two counts. 
One was, that he had uttered certain irreverent (as 
they assumed them to be) words in reference to the 
magnificent Jewish temple ; and the other was, that 
he professed to be the Christ, the Son of God. JSTow, 
as to the first count, leaving aside all consideration 
of the figurative import of his w r ords, it may be re- 
marked that the witnesses did not agree as to what 
he had actually uttered, the one simply testifying 
that Jesus said he was able, and the other testifying 
that Jesus affirmed positively, that he would des- 
troy the temple and build it up again in three days. 
The finding of a verdict of Guilty, on this count, was 
a violation of the fundamental principle of Jewish 
law, (Deut. xvii. 6,) which forbids that any man 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 149 

should be put to death, save upon the concurring 
testimony of, at least, two witnesses. His whole 
history, from his manifestation in the flesh up to the 
time of his condemnation to death, was in proof of 
his affirmation that he was the Christ, the Son of 
God. His spirit, doctrines, and mighty works were 
flaming seals of his truthfulness — not to say, be- 
sides, that the incidents of his life harmonized with 
the spirit of prophecy. His adversaries brought no 
testimony to contradict his assertion of Messiah- 
ship and Divinity ; they could not bring such tes- 
timony. His condemnation, therefore, on this count, 
w T as not only in the lack of evidence, but against 
the clearest, mightiest evidence. The second charge, 
— that of Treason — that he was guilty of " pervert- 
ing the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to 
Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a King," 
was a bold perversion of his spirit, practice, and 
teaching. True, he solemnly declared himself to 
be a king, but he also explicitly announced, " My 
kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom were 
of this world, then would my servants fight that I 
should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is my 
kingdom not from hence." And how, with shadow 



150 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

of reason, could he be esteemed guilty of treason, 
who had uttered the noble sentiment, " Render, 
therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things that are God's ?" More- 
over, it is worthy of being brought to distinct no- 
tice, (let the eyes of the church rest always upon 
the fact, as triumphant vindication of her Lord, 
and yet in tender, tearful indignation at the wrong 
treatment to which he was subjected,) that, during 
the process of the tnal of Jesus, Pilate, the Roman 
governor, declared substantially, no less than five 
different, several times, " I have found no fault in 
this man." In view of all these things, we use but 
the words of truth and soberness when we say the 
crucifixion scene was marked by glaring injustice. 
Jesus Christ was condemned to death contrary to 
Jewish law, contrary to Roman law, in defiance of 
all law ! His sentence of death was the result of 
envenomed passion, hellish hatred ; and, in giving 
that sentence, Pontius Pilate, despite his washing 
of hands, steeped his soul in guilt that floods nor 
seas can wash away ; and, as, in some sense, a re- 
presentative of fallen humanity, reared an eternal 
monument, for the gaze of men and angels, of hu- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 151 

man hatred, apart from Divine influence, to God 
and perfect righteousness. In giving that unright- 
eous sentence of death to the innocent, Pontius 
Pilate shamefully denied the dignity of his own 
manhood, and sullied the ermine of a Roman 
judge ! 

III. Tlie Crucifixion scene was markedly astound- 
ing indignities. 

Look at Christ Jesus in the light of what has 
been previously asserted. Look at him in his com- 
plex nature. See him in the complete fullness, the 
full-orbed grandeur of his Godhead, and then note 
well his great, good, pure, exquisitely developed 
manhood. Then trace his steps along the avenue 
of dishonors through which he passed, man, for 
thee, that thou, in virtue of the hideous indignities 
heaped upon him, mightest move over a pathway 
gorgeous as though paved with diamonds, roofed 
with rainbows, and having angel harmonies floating 
around it ever ; and if thou art not penetrated in 
ail thy being with a sense of the atrocity of theinsult3 
offered thine adorable Savior — and if thou art not 
moved and mellowed in heart — the stones of the 



152 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

earth bitterly rebuke thee ! We see him, first, in 
the mansion of the deputy High-Priest, for simply 
declining to answer questions put in the spirit of 
malice, rudely struck by an attending officer. Next 
we find him in the palace of the High-Priest him- 
self, receiving loathsome insults from the officers 
having him in custody, some inflicting upon him that 
foulest symbol of disgrace, spitting in his very 
face — that noble face, the mirror of all intellectual 
majesty and all moral and social loveliness ; while 
others smote him with rough and cruel blows. Af- 
terwards, being blindfolded, he was compelled to 
endure the vile taunts and merciless abuse of even 
menials, who struck him on the face w T ith the palms 
of their hands, and jeeringly asked him, saying: 
Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, who is it that smote 
thee ? And, it is added, in mournful emphasis, 
"many other things blasphemously spake they 
against him." At a still farther period in his suf- 
ferings, we observe him in the presence of Herod, 
and, because he refused to gratify a vain curiosity, 
violent invectives were hurled against him, and, in 
mockery of his claims to the character of a king, 
behold them arraying him in a white, gorgeous robe. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 158 

Let them do it, for soon he shall be robed with the 
Shekinah of God, and sway the sceptre of a dom- 
inion extending from the highest heaven to the neth- 
ermost hell, through all the amplitudes of God's 
vast and varied universe ! Having been returned 
to the tribunal of Pilate, we see him ingloriously 
scourged. The fair form of your Redeemer, 
Christian, was marred by the lash of the scourger. 
" The ploughers ploughed upon my back ; they 
made long their furrows." After this, he was hur- 
ried into the court martial room, and exposed to all 
the coarse violence of some six hundred rude Ro- 
man soldiers, clustered around him scoffingly. They 
threw upon him, in derision of his royalty, the rich 
scarlet cloak of a military officer ; planted on his 
brow, in the same spirit, a crown of twisted brier 
shrubs, placed a reed sceptre in his hand, and in 
mockery bowed the knee and cried, Hail, King of 
the Jews ! Aye, they spit upon him, with the reed 
smote him on the head, and, in bitter cruelty, struck 
him, at will, with their unholy hands ; " and then 
varied their indignities by returning to their scorn- 
ful prostrations before him;" — the Jewish Hierachy 
without, all the while, " feasting their eyes" with 



154 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

the injuries inflicted on their victim. Pilate, now, 
half relenting, and as if to move the tumultuous 
crowd to pity, brings Jesus out openly before them. 
Gaze on him in this solemn attitude, and let the tears 
which nature sheds at the sight of profaned Divin- 
ity and outraged humanity, flow freely. Ah, there 
he stands in the presence of his maddened foes ! 
His frame is gory with the wounds of scourging, 
the mock robe hangs loosely around him, and his 
massive brow is sprinkled over with the blood oozing 
from the punctures of the thorns that still cling to 
his head — a crown of ignominy. Pilate cries, Be- 
hold the man ! But they cry, Crucify him, crucify 
him ! We approach now a spectacle of profound 
interest in this fearful, mournful exhibit of outrage 
and agony. A spectacle such as this universe has 
witnessed, and will witness, but once. It stands out 
before the vision of virtuous intelligences an object 
of intense wonder ; stands out in mysterious loneli- 
ness, tragic, solemn solitude, a pillar of ceaseless 
memorial of the " depths below depths" to which 
Christ descended in humbling himself, to achieve 
salvation for the perishing. Jesus stands in the 
midst of an infuriated rabble, with his cross press- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 155 

ing heavily upon him, ready to march out to Cal- 
vary, Oh, see him ! Methinks I trace the tremb- 
lings of his body, as it quakes with mental struggle, 
and is wearied with buffeting and blows ; while the 
convulsive twitching of his august countenance, 
invested with a mystic majesty worn by the face of 
no mere man, reveals the awful throes of the soul 
w r ithin. He moves ! The harps of heaven are 
hushed and tuneless now, while around his way a 
storm of anathemas is raving. The King eternal, im- 
mortal, invisible, the only wise God, garmented in the 
flesh, traces his pathway amidst the confused, vexed 
roar of a shouting, laughing, hooting, hissing, hating, 
cursing crowd, while the dwellers in Jerusalem, as 
they look down from their roofs, are told this is 
Jesus of Nazareth, a pestilent fellow, — proceeding 
to the death of a malefactor — a blasphemer and 
traitor. But hold ! horror ! As they emerge from 
the city, Jesus shudders and rocks to and fro, as 
the giant tree before the woodman's axe quivers in 
all its fibres and sways to its fall ; he faints under 
the load, sinks to the earth ! Ye heavens, where 
were your avenging thunders ? — and thou earth, why 
didst thou not engulph the guilty crowd ? Ah, a 



156 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

voice murmurs from the cross, "Thus it is written, 
and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise 
from the dead the third day : and that repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in his 
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. " 
This, this is the reason why the thunders of heaven 
were sleeping then; this is the reason why the 
earth was not seized with spasms of righteous 
wrath ! 



IV. The Crucifixion scene was marked by 
unrivaled dignity and beauty of demeanor on the 
part of Jesus. 

Remember these grievous trials which came upon 
him did not all transpire in a few moments, but 
there were slowly wearing hours of anguish allotted 
him. Through all their course he passed without a 
stain of transgression upon him. When struck un- 
couthly by the attending officer, he merely gave a 
manly remonstrance, while through the remaining 
succession of indignities he reviled not again, 
evinced no mark of resentment, moved through all 
his aggravated insults and injuries with meekness and 
dignified composure. Can we ever forget his for- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 157 

getfulness of self, when on his " dolorous way" he 
said to the women who bewailed and lamented, in 
allusion to the calamities which were coming on the 
blinded nation rejecting him, " Daughters of Jeru- 
salem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves 
and for your children !" Can we ever forget his 
illustration of natural affection, when, with a world's 
transgressions pressing upon his soul, as he saw his 
mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, 
he said, Woman, behold thy son ! and to that dis- 
ciple, Behold thy mother ! Can we forget how, 
through the tauntings and jeerings he received 
while he hung upon the cross, he responded not in 
bitterness, responded not at all ! Oh, can we ever 
forget how, when his executioners w T ere performing 
their cruel office, for it seems to have been uttered 
then, and his spouting blood was the response to 
their cruel blows, he cried, " Father, forgive them; 
for they know not what they do !" What patience, 
what calmness, what meekness, what sublime sweet- 
ness of soul he manifested while treading the wine 
press alone ! Oh, thou pattern of all purity, ex- 
emplar of all righteousness, glorious indeed was the 
chaplet of the flowers of holiness thou didst cull 



158 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

and twine together in the hours of thy darkness 
and agony, and leave behind thee as a legacy of love, 
to blush and breathe upon the aching brow of our 
struggling, sorrowing humanity ! 

V. The Crucifixion scene ivas marked by incom- 
prehensible suffering. 

The sufferings of the Redeemer were complex. 
His physical pain must have been great in the ex- 
treme. Crucifixion is a form of death invested with 
peculiar terror. So full of cruel anguish is it that 
the polished Cicero exclaims : " Ab oculis auribus- 
que, et omni cogitatione hominum removendum esse ;" 
that is to say, it is so full of horror, " That it ought 
to be removed from the eyes and from the ears, and 
from every thought of men." There are several 
features of this mode of death which you will please 
notice, as tending to give a solemn impression of 
the torment of body endured by our Savior. First, 
the body is placed in an unnatural position, so that 
the " least motion" is necessarily attended with ex- 
cruciating thrills of pain in the parts which are 
pierced by the nails, and in the back which is fur- 
rowed with the marks of scourging. Again, " The 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 159 

nails being driven through parts of the hands and 
feet "which abound in nerves and tendons, create the 
most exquisite anguish." And yet again, " The ex- 
posure of so many wounds to the open air brings 
on an inflammation, which every moment increases 
the poignancy of the suffering." Withal, the circula- 
tion of the blood is deranged. The surcharged ves- 
sels stand like whip-cords upon the throbbing brow, 
the stomach is oppressed, and the poor heart heaves 
and struggles and moans with an agony more bitter 
than death itself. Christian hearers, behold Christ 
Jesus on the cross writhing thus "for us men and 
our salvation." Go near in thought, 

"As though Tve every one 

Beneath his cross had stood, 
And seen him heave, and heard him groan, 
And felt his gushing blood. " 

But take off thy shoes from thy feet, man that 
approachest that cross, for thou standest on holy 
ground; far there G-ocl wrote the charter of the 
world's life in blood, even of his own Son ! You 
know how quickly and loudly solid bodies convev 
sound, and physicians tell us that the sound of the 



160 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

breathing lungs, in a normal state, is like the mur 
mur of the evening breeze among forest leaves, 
while it is coarser and harsher in different forms of 
disease. Press your ear now reverently to the cross 
of Jesus. Every throb of the aching heart, and 
every surge of the laboring lungs, whispers, with 
mysterious emphasis, " God in Christ reconciling 
the world unto himself!" Mark the blood that 
streams from his open wounds, how, as it patters on 
the rills of gore beneath, it seems to murmur in the 
ear of the soul, "God is love !" Those who draw 
pathetic pictures of the physical anguish of Jesus, 
and rest here, omit the head and front of his sor- 
rows. The acme of his agony was in his soul 
rather than in his body, though its every fibre was 
a filament of torture. " My soul is exceeding sor- 
rowful, even unto death." " He shall see of the 
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." "When 
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." The 
world's sins were pressing on his great spirit, 
strengthened of Divinity, and made mighty to suf- 
fer ; " and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity 
of us all." His sufferings furnish a satisfaction to 
that desecrated law of Jehovah, whose slightest vio- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 161 

lation apart from a redeeming scheme, would inevit- 
ably bring an eternal blight on all the conscious be- 
ing of the trangressor. But then his blood clean- 
Beth from all sin. He offered himself a sacrifice ad- 
equate to secure, were gospel conditions complied 
with on the part of man, the remission of all the 
black blasphemies, dismal murders, and horrid enor- 
mities, that the human heart, set on fire of hell, 
should evolve in the roll of thousands of years. 
Stupendous agony! Rayless abyss of sorrow! One 
of the finest passages in all history occurred, when 
Louis Kossuth, speaking of his representative re- 
lation to Hungary, with the iron heel of the oppres- 
sor right on her burning heart, and while the ghosts 
of the martyrs of his fatherland were stalking be- 
fore his soul, said, " The woes of millions of Mag- 
yars are in my heart."' Yet how even this sublime 
posture dwindles into insignificance when compared 
with the posture of Him who, in a high and pecu- 
liar sense, bore, in his great heart, the woes of men 
in multitudes like the sands of the seashore, the 
leaves of the wild woods, or the clustered stars of 
the midnight firmament ! 

Jesus suffered keenly in spirit under the vile in- 
11 



162 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

dignities which were heaped upon him. We are 
prone to think, because of his great nature, that 
these things affected him not. But then remember, 
he was a model of the finer sensibilities of manhood, 
and therefore, as the sensitive plant shrivels to the 
touch, so his soul recoiled in convulsive horror from 
the shower of scorn and contumely which was driv- 
ing against him. Hear his own tender words as 
given in one of the Messianic psalms : u Thou hast 
known my reproach and my shame, and my dis- 
honor: mine adversaries are all before thee." Ah, 
it was not in absence of thrilled feeling he braved 
the loathsome insults given him ! No, no ! it was 
for us, even for our sakes, that he muffled up his 
anguish under scorns and scoffs, buffeting and blows. 
He despised the shame, trampled under his feet the 
dishonors done him, that he might save us. Let us 
love him forever ! 

There was also, doubtless, in the struggles of the 
crucifixion scene, sore conflict of soul with Satanic 
agency. It was the hour and power of darkness. 
Hell rushed upon him with all its maddened might 
and malice. He withstood the shock, but he suf- 
fered fearfully. Crowning up his trials was the 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 163 

strange eclipse of God under which he passed. A 
horror of great darkness fell upon him, and from the 
bosom of the gloom he lifted the wild cry, — which, 
as an abiding testimonial of the incomprehensible 
suffering of the atoning struggle of Jesus, will re- 
ver berate amidst the heights and depths of creation, 
and startle the ears of all virtuous intelligences 
forever and ever — " Elohee, Elohee, lamawh se- 
bakthanee." " My God, my God, why hast thou 
left me ?" 

He could endure all else — the forsaking of his 
followers — the treachery of Judas — the hisses and 
hate of the rabble — the buffetings — the nails — the 
onsets of hell — but when the rushing darkness of 
his Father's frown came down upon him, it was too 
much for his humanity — " it expired upon the altar 
of his Divinity" — the sea of his sorrows burst its 
barriers — his mighty heart broke in grief, he gave 
up the ghost ! Aye, and in death twined amidst 
the shadows of death the bow of God's mercies, 
to gleam and thrill there while earth has a soul to 



save 



What a tragical climax these atoning pangs 
reached ! When I see Jesus disrobing himself of 



164 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

the splendor of the Godhead, and becoming the 
babe of Bethlehem, my soul exclaims — Wondrous 
stoop ! When I see him a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief, in his pathway of benedictions 
to men, I say — Amazing condescension ! But when 
I see him yielding himself up to such an august 
agony that his very heart was rent with a storm of 
grief spasms, I say — 

" Lamb of God, was ever pain, 
Was ever love like thine V* 

In tracing him through his sufferings to the moment 
of victory, when the sacrifice was fully offered up, 
he seems to have moved along an ascending gallery 
of gloom, till he reached the very nave of night, 
and emerged thence the morning star and Sun of 
Righteousness forever. Aye, he moved, by a spiral 
march, up and around that huge, high column of 
infamy and agony that sin had reared for him to 
scale, till he reached its very apex, stood upon its 
hazy summit, red with his own 'pure blood! In the 
Mendings that centre on him there, that was the 
sublimest position, so far as earth is interested, that 
the universe and the everlasting will witness. He 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 165 

stood there, while below and around him was Death's 
throne of skulls, crumbled and fallen ; Hades from 
beneath rifled of her hosts ; — and there flashed upon 
his eye the phalanxes of the redeemed; and there 
swept in upon his soul the surging songs — deathless 
hallelujahs — of angels and glorified men ; of the 
general assembly and church of the first-born, which 
are written in heaven ! The spirit of triumph 
seized him, and he said, " It is finished." He 
paused, and yet again he cried with a loud voice, 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;" 
and having said thus, he bowed his head and gave 
up the ghost — entered Paradise ! What a transition 
from gloom to glory ! Savior of us all, we hail 
thine entrance there ; thy sorrows ended ; thy rapture 
begun ! With the church above we say, "Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and 
glory, and blessing." 

VI. The Crucifixion scene was fraught with tre- 
mendous results. 

In the cross of Christ there is an adaptation to 
move the world. It appeals to the human under- 



166 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

standing as a righteous method of saving sinners- 
offering as it does unspeakably precious satisfaction 
to the trampled law of God, and a fullness of merit 
adequate to reach the foulest iniquity and save the 
chief of sinners. Then, too, it appeals to the con- 
sciences of men with awful emphasis. In view of 
the mystic majesty of the sacrificial victim — he 
being the God-man — a voice rolls from the cross 
over the souls of men with more than the deep 
toned grandeur of Sinaitic thunders, " How shall 
we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?" Withal, 
was there ever, can there ever be such a powerful 
address to the noble affections of men, as is given 
in the breaking heart, and in the speaking blood 
of Jesus ? The fervent response of the christian 
heart is, 

Love so amazing, so divine, 
Demands my heart, my all ! 

The actual effects of the cross are and will be in 
unison with these observations. History, since the 
erection of the cross of Jesus Christ, is but a run- 
ning comment on its transforming power over both 
individual men and over nations ; while the achieve- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 167 

ments of the past furnish ample assurance that the 

glowing canopy, which prophecy weaves over the 
world's future, is not a fiction of fancy hut a sub- 
lime verity. Even the long blighted earth, under 
the talisrnanic energy of the cross, shall he radiant 
and redolent all over with the light and fragrance 
of holiness. No element of change has ever been 
introduced among men, so instinct with power to 
revolutionize and renovate, as the cross of Jesus. 
Looking at the Savior as he hangs upon the rugged 
cross, which so soon he would convert into the scep- 
tre of an empire comprehending the universe, it 
seems to me that the phenomena attending his death 
are capable of more than one meaning. The dark 
haze brooding around is not merely the drapery of 
nature's sympathetic grief, but, also, GroeFs floating 
banner of ho file ! 

The crash of rending rocks is not only earth's 
groan of sympathetic sorrow, but (rod's trumpet 
bray of revolution! What can we say too strongly 
of the cross of Christ ? It is because of the burst- 
ing blood of Jesus, so far as rebel man is concerned, 
that the river of life rolls its crystal current over 
the fair domains of heaven. The trees of life that 



168 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

fringe the shores of that sweet river with deathless 
green, w r ith each festooning vine and every luscious, 
breathing flower of Paradise ; all, all, twine their 
roots around the anguish-quivering ligaments of the 
heart of Jesus ! The crucifixion of Christ is the 
vital fact of humanity, The cross of Christ, in 
view of the assurance that the heathen shall be the 
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
the possession, of the Messiah — in view of the un- 
foldings of Daniel and the Apocalypse — is the great 
moral axis around tuhich the destinies of the world 
are sweeping. 

It seems, indeed, as if all the ages of earth are 
employed in chanting a sublime antiphony about the 
cross of Jesus. The ages, previous to the crucifix- 
ion, appear to be evermore repeating the words of 
Paradisiacal promise : "And I will put enmity be- 
tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel." The response of the ages 
from the crucifixion to the resurrection morning, is 
forever rolling forth after this manner : " And you, 
being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of 
your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 169 

having forgiven you all trespasses. Blotting out 
the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. 
which was contrary to us. and took it out of the 
way, nailing it t: his jross : and haying spoiled prin- 
cipalities and powers, he made a show of them 
openly, triumphing over then; in it." Eternity will 
with the choral peal of "every creature 
which is in heaven, and on the : ..r:h. and under the 
:"i. and such as are in the sea. and all that are in 
them." whom John heard saying, ••Blessing and 
honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for- 
ever and ever." 

By way of improvement of our glorious theme, 
we observe, First, All sound education must have 
a reference to the cross, to the obligations of men 
to God in Christ crucified. Ail education — how- 
ever . ipi diensive and accurate in other respects. 
without a reference to the cross, is erroneous and 
superficial. It is proceeded upon in variance to the 
true plan of things as constituted bv God. It regards 
not the scope and relationships of our being, and is as 
superficial and erroneous as it would be to discipline 



170 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

one designed for the life of a lawyer in the prere- 
quisites of the merchant — and leave him utterly 
destitute of training as to the principles and prac- 
tice of the law. The cross of Jesus, therefore, is a 
fitting theme for the pulpit, in its contributions to 
the high festivals of a Christian college. Again, 
all education, without the leavening of Christ, is mad- 
ness in a measure ; it defeats the true design of 
education, which is to lead out and develop the pow- 
ers of the soul. To confine it to the intellectual, 
and neglect the moral nature, is certainly a great 
error. But when we think of our immortality, it is 
certainly, to pursue the course just indicated, to de- 
feat the design of education, even as it regards the 
intellect. Time is the period of our weakness and 
infancy ; eternity, the period of our strength and 
manhood — eternity is to be the theatre for the un- 
folding of the mightiness of our nature. But the 
tendency of sin is to shrivel the soul and make it a 
dwarfish thing. A forever blighted thing, the soul 
of a man must, to some extent, be forever a shriv- 
eled thing. But in the elevation of man which the 
cross gives, the body will have the freshness of 
youth upon it always, and the intellect will be cloud- 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 171 

less and clear, "while the universe shall be the area, 
and eternity the duration, of its investigations. Stu- 
pendous indeed, will be the heights the intellect of 
a saved man will scale, under the fellowship of an- 
gels and quickenings of God. His soul, conscious of 
power, shall move ever exultingly onward. With 
his glorified intellect, as with the rod of God, he 
will smite the granite rock of truth, till his whole 
being quivers in the brilliance of its flashings. Fi- 
nally, let us not forget the application of our theme 
to the individual ; that the cross of Christ is 
freighted with destiny to each one of ourselves. 
Before another semi-centennial season will arrive, 
the great probability is, that the mass of those as- 
sembled here on this noble and dignified occasion, 
will have gone hence — departed this life. I say, 
then, Behold the Lamb of God ! Grasp the cross 
now ! Let it be the controlling power of life. Re- 
member that this cross surely blights, if it bless not. 
If it prove not the sceptre of mercy and salva- 
tion, it will be the black pavilion of God's eternal 
battle thunders ! Oh, let me remind you that the 
time draweth nigh when you will need its solace. 
When the flush of health is on us, and the activities 



172 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

of life are attracting our attention, our souls may 
forget God, and we feel strong and defiant in sin. 
But when earth is receding, and eternity becoming 
a tremendous present, the soul of a man intensely 
feels that it must cling around the imperishable 
mercies of God in Christ crucified, or miserably, 
irrevocably perish. So it was with one having as 
robust a nature as any of yourselves. I allude to 
that man who left behind him the scenes of his own 
sunny Spain ; crossed the stormy Atlantic when 
navigation was full of perils ; clambered the heights 
of the Isthmus ; ploughed the deep, blue waves of 
the Pacific ; and with the fury of the tropical hur- 
ricane, and the war-cry of " St. lago, andatthem" 
— more dismal than the Condor's scream — broke in 
upon the brilliant empire of the Incas ; that bold, 
chivalric, yet perfidious man— Francisco Pizarro. 
"When his foes burst in upon him with shouts of, 
Death to the tyrant, he wrapped his cloak around 
him, and fought bravely and well, fought until 
overpowered by numbers — at last receiving a sore 
wound — "Jesu!" exclaimed the dying man, and, 
tracing a cross with his finger on the bloody floor, 
he bent down his head to kiss it, when a stroke 



TEE CRUCIFIXION. 17 o 

more friendly than the rest, pat an end to his ex- 
A$ it was with him. so will ir be with 
toil If not now. vet in leath yon will cry beseech- 
ingly. Jesu. Jesn. save or I perish ! Oh, whynot sail 
on the eompass'::.- ;: Christ now! If yon 

5 to the cross, evermore uttering the motto of 
John H " S w C7 .'•- ■-." it will shed 

manifold blessings up >n ypu in this life, and elevate 
ter all glorious. Your ;: 
will be rich, will be like a stroll along the banks 
of - iver — a river such as can roll >nly 

in F .A river margined with meadows thi : 

are always fresh and fragrant : over-hnn ."■■"_ cliffs, 
ines are never bleak and bare, an . 
with eternal emerald ; and 
agh all the ranges ::' whose bright fl wings, its 
rippling waters blend their clear notes with raptu- 
rous bursts of bird song. A rivei whose meander- 
ings are brooded yvei by luscious, sunny mis:s. 
:- all its winding shores are fringed with banks 
of bloom, and trees of life whose leaves shall not 
¥ ither : the whole scene wrapped in skies ::' pore, 
deep, delicate blue, and which are never, through the 
1 himself, darkened with the frown. 



174 THE CRUCIFIXION. 

nor ruffled with the sweep of the storm. As such 
a journey would be to the sense, so to the soul will 
be the everlasting pathway of the Redeemed of the 
Lord. The prism reveals to the eye the lines of light, 
whose united gleams constitute the light of the 
morning. May this cross of Jesus Christ, as the 
prism of life, unfold to the eye of each one of us, 
amidst the toils and tears, and exciting interests of 
earth, the beauties of the Sun of Righteousness ; 

J c - 7 

and may it fling around each death couch at the last of 
earth, and forever thereafter may it fling upon the 
entranced spirit the splendors of the heaven of hea- 
vens ! Amen. 



NOTES. 



tes. 



BTol 1 - liberal transL:. _ 

of the homil~ : Boa 

Z'.. . G i H thai -.:'-'--- , their nay 

[ B At tsinne the anih ig I 
I . I .. - ■ . 

d thing I I 

In I gales cold Winter melt? away 

Spring in Sumni a a rarning n 
Yet Smmn sr . ifol reign 

- -■'_ . . mter soon rein 

I„7 m » renews hei :.' with growing Eight; 
2 " — hen — - ank intc the lepths :: night 
. :e all die r . . " the rieh, the rar . . lai I 

he knows "d Heaven with sverl mte i ; i 

' Snail Id to- 

BLow :~_. ih .- z ;■..--■. .. Pnhris zt nm- 



178 NOTES. 

ful sweetness like the low, deep boom which rolls out at 
intervals from the strings of some mighty Base- Viol, when 
in harmony with grieving flutes and wailing horns, it is 
shivering with a farewell sorrow. 

The Bible speaks more distinctly : " Then shall the 
dust return to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it." Eccles. xii. 7. 

Note 2. During the composition of the Sermon on 
Spring, the author visited a Christian woman, much worn 
by disease. One day he found her with a full blown rose 
by her side on the bed. He was informed by her daughter, 
that in former times she had shown no special relish for 
flowers. Not long after this incident she entered into 
rest, into that noble inheritance where beauty and bloom 
never fade. 

Note 3. This scene was witnessed by Laniartine, if I 
remember aright, in the month of November. The cli- 
mate of Syria differs materially from our own in the 
northern portion of America, and thus a floral beauty can 
be seen there, in some places, in November, which may 
illustrate spring brilliance with us. 

Note 4. An exclamation made by Rev. E. Thomson, 

D.D., with reference to Hyde Park, London. 

i 

Note 5. Our American is the reverse of the English 
lark 5 which sings while soaring aloft in the air. Good old 



totes. : _ 

hook T ~~ :'.::-_ has a : : ly sweet passage about the 

latter: " At first, the lark, when she means : rejoice, :: 

7. herself and those that heai her, she then puts the 

h and sings as sh into the air; and, 

having ended hei hi venly snip] yment, grows then mute 

- think she must lescend tc the dnll earth; 

which she would d : '.rich, but foi nee sssity 

h our lark there is a : me of sadness blending with 

the deal sweetness >f her strains sc that, singing as she 

midst the me: I w grass, hei strains seem like the 

plaintive eric- f some iarth-struggling spirit, — ec !ping 

up from the very lust towards the gates : heaven; and 

glish lark as wes ving the 
exultant song of a £ g hei way tc coronation 

within the srnal gates 

Note B. Snot? }rystal& Oct. B, 1857. The snow 
srystals : last night are extremely beautiful ; the larg 2st 
kind is an ineh in length : its form exactly resembles the 
end of a pointed feathei Stellar crystals two-tenths :: 
an inch in diameter have alsc fallen; these have six 
points, and are the most exquisite things when seen under 
a microscope. I remember noticing them at Melville 
Island, in March, 1853 3 ^hen the temj sratui 5 rose :: ^ : : 
as these were formed last night between the teniperatures 
: and 1_' : . i: would appear that the form is lue :: :. 
sextain zzri fcemperature En the sun, :: even in moon- 
light ■ - : - srystals glisten most brilliantly; and as 



180 NOTES. 

our masts and rigging are abundantly covered with them, 
the Fox never was so gorgeously arrayed as she now ap- 
pears. — Mc Clintoctis Narrative. 

Note 7. This sermon was delivered at the Semi-centen- 
nial Celebration of Washington College, Pennsylvania, 
June 17th, 1856. It appears in this volume as it was 
subsequently published, with the addition of the passage 
about — the antiphony of ages. 

Note 8. For an elaborate exhibition of this fact; at 
least the high possibility of its being such, see Methodist 
Quarterly Eeview, April, 1849, Article II, Physical Cause 
of the Death of Christ. Rev. D. W. Clark, D.D. 

Note 9. See Prescott's Conquest of Peru, vol. II — 184. 

The author would also acknowledge his indebtedness 
to the following sources for important material worked 
into the sermon — Harmony and Exposition of the Gos- 
pels — New York; Lane and Scott — 1852. By James 
Strong, A.M. 

Jahn's Biblical Archaeology, Sec. 262. 



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